my predictions for Texas/ok/ kansas ice/snow sleet event

[slim79]

its kind of early to tell.. but this should be pretty exiting for the southernand central plains.. i think the Panhandle of Texas and kansas and central and northern oklahoma should see a nice blanket of snow.. anywhere from 1-4 inches of snow..... and southern oklahoma and North Texas i think it''ll be a mix of snow sleet and ice.. i think southern oklahoma southwest arkansas and North Texas around Dallas could get a major ice/sleet event along with some snow if things set up right it could get very interesting around southern Ok, North Texas, Northeast Texas and southwest arkansas...central and south texas the temps are going to be warmer but i still think theres a good shot at some sleet thrown in with the rain from austin to houston..

[Portastorm]

OK slim ... but what are you basing your forecast on? Just curious ...

[CaptinCrunch]

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORMAN OK
413 AM CST MON NOV 27 2006

.DISCUSSION...
AS MILD AS IT HAS BEEN...IT IS NOT EASY EVEN FOR US TO GIVE A
COMPLETE PICTURE OF THE SIGNIFICANT CHANGES THAT LIE AHEAD. ADD IN
THE DIIFICULTIES THE MODELS ARE HAVING WITH THE MASSIVE ARCTIC AIR
MASS TO OUR N... AND THIS HAS BEEN AN UNUSUALLY LABOR-INTENSIVE
EFFORT THIS MORNING TO GET THE GRIDS INTO REASONABLE SHAPE. TREND
CONTINUES TO LOWER TEMPS AND RAISE POPS... WITH CONTINUED
POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT WINTER PRECIP BY AROUND THU AND PERHAPS
AGAIN TOWARD EARLY NEXT WEEK.

STRONG SFC FRONT HAS SLIPPED INTO NW OK THIS MORNING. IT SHOULD
LIFT BACK N BY THIS EVENING ACCORDING TO MODEL GUIDANCE... BUT
THEY NEVER REALLY SHOWED IT INTO NW OK IN THE FIRST PLACE. SO IT
MAY LINGER LONG ENOUGH IN THE NW TO HOLD TEMPS DOWN WELL BELOW
OUR CURRENT FORECAST HIGHS IN THE FAR NW. PRECIP EXPECTED TO
INCREASE ACROSS MUCH OF AREA DURING DAY PER NAM/GFS QPFS. SOME OF
IT MAY BE IN FORM OF SOME -FZRA/FZDZ IN THE FAR NW THIS MORNING...
OTHERWISE MOSTLY -RA WITH PERHAPS A FEW TSRA. CONTINUED MILD
TONIGHT THRU TUE WITH MUCH OF THE CLOUDS AND MAIN PRECIP CHANCES
SHIFTING E.

MODELS AGREE ON BRINGING STRONG ARCTIC FRONT BACK INTO NW OK WED
MORNING... BUT WE REMAIN SKEPTICAL AND THINK THEY ARE STILL GOING
TO UNDERFORECAST THE S-WARD MOVEMENT OF THE COLD AIR. HAVE SPEEDED
UP THE NAM BY AROUND 3-6 HRS REGARDING TEMP DROP AND WIND SHIFT ON
WED... AND INCLUDED A DECIDEDLY NON-DIURNAL T TREND THAT EVEN THE
ZFP FORMATTER HAS PICKED UP ON THIS MORNING. RAIN/FEW TSTORMS
EXPECTED TO INCREASE AGAIN ON WED AS THE FRONT MOVES IN.

TIMING OF THE UPPER SYSTEM LAGGING THE ARCTIC INTRUSION IS STILL
QUITE UNCERTAIN... BUT HAS MORE TO DO WITH WHERE AND WHEN - NOT IF
- SIGNIFICANT FROZEN/FREEZING PRECIP MAY OCCUR. GOING A BIT SLOWER
THAN THE LATEST GFS... WITH A NOD TO THE ECMWF WHICH HAS BEEN
CONSISTENTLY SLOWER/DEEPER IN RECENT RUNS. TWO MECHANISMS -
FRONTOGENETIC FORCING N OF THE SFC FRONT AND DYNAMIC LIFT AHEAD OF
THE TROF ITSELF... MAY RESULT IN 2 PRECIP AREAS MERGING OVER THE
OK/NTX AREA ON THU BEFORE MOVING E THU EVE/NIGHT. DGEX HAS BACKED
OFF ON QPF BUT GFS STILL INDICATING WIDESPREAD 0.25-1 INCH TOTALS
AFTER TEMPS FALL TO NEAR/BELOW FREEZING WED NIGHT. THUS THIS STILL
HAS POTENTIAL TO TURN INTO A SIGNIFICANT WINTER STORM. POPS BEING
HELD JUST BELOW 50PCT AT THIS TIME DUE TO TIMING UNCERTAINTIES AND
THE DRIER AND LESS-AMPLIFIED DGEX... BUT POTENTIAL FOR SNOW/ICE IS
HIGH ENOUGH THAT WE WILL DO A STRONGLY-WORDED SPS AND INDICATE
POSSIBLE WINTER STORM WATCHES OVER THE NEXT 1-2 DAYS. AT THIS TIME
THE MOST LIKELY AREAS APPEAR TO BE CENTRAL-ERN AND SE OK...ROUGHLY
NEAR AND E/SE OF THE I-44 CORRIDOR FOR ICE LATE WED NIGHT INTO THU...
BUT OBVIOUSLY THIS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE PENDING FUTURE MODEL
TRENDS.

LARGE-SCALE PATTERN REMAINS COLD INTO NEXT WEEKEND AS UPPER RIDGE
HOLDS FROM E PAC N-WARD TO BC COAST. UKMET IN PARTICULAR HANGS ON
TO A COLD SFC HIGH ANCHORED OVER SW CANADA WITH RIDGING SE-WARD
THROUGH PLAINS AND MS VALLEY. HAVE LOWERED LATE-WEEK TEMS QUITE A
BIT ...ESPECIALLY N AND E. UPPER PATTERN FEATURES TROFING
DOWNSTREAM OF THE RIDGE AND HANGING BACK INTO THE SW STATES. GFS
AND DGEX FORECAST A CLOSED LOW OVER THE SW BY NEXT SUN. WITH BROAD
COLD AIR MASS IN PLACE... THIS IS A CLASSIC LARGE SCALE PATTERN
FOR ANOTHER POTENTIAL WINTER STORM FOR THE S PLAINS EARLY NEXT
WEEK...MOST LIKELY MON OR THEREABOUTS. FAR TOO MANY IFS TO NAIL
THIS ONE DOWN YET...BUT WILL NEED TO WATCH THINGS CLOSELY AS THESE
EVENTS OFTEN HAPPEN IN BUNCHES ONCE THE SYNOPTIC PATTERN SETS UP.

[JenBayles]

Very nice discussion. I wish the HGX office would produce a decent discussion once in a while...

[TrekkerCC]

I am going to add my voice to the fray. However, something very important first:

The following post is NOT an official forecast and should not be used as such. It is just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. It is NOT endorsed by any professional institution including storm2k.org For Official Information please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

I'm going to do a general thoughts (instead of a specific forecast) for the North Texas area. Generally, the front looks on schedule to be through the area around Thursday morning. By Thursday evening, the temperatures should be at or below freezing (22z to 2z) in most of the area. I favor it to be at or below freezing at 02z in the metroplex. GFS 12z seems more coldish (surprise, surprise), but the NAM (12z, have not looked at the 18z yet) looks not too dissimilar. Model QRF looks very overdone at the critical timeframe (where most of North Texas is at or below freezing). The situation is coming together, but I don't believe this will be a major winter event for the North Texas area (the models look overdone in some places; especially when compared to the surface plots.)

Predictions: Northwest counties may have some sleet/freezing rain during the day on Thursday. With the warm temperatures over the past few weeks, probably no or little accumulation. Metroplex area: Possible sleet in the evening, but I really think the GFS and NAM are overdoing it. It may be very hit or miss on precipitation. This does not feel like the situation last year (where we got freezing rain/sleet), where the NAM called correctly a post-frontal precipitation event. Southern counties probably will end up with rain.

[CaptinCrunch]

I am going to add my voice to the fray. However, something very important first:

The following post is NOT an official forecast and should not be used as such. It is just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. It is NOT endorsed by any professional institution including storm2k.org For Official Information please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

I'm going to do a general thoughts (instead of a specific forecast) for the North Texas area. Generally, the front looks on schedule to be through the area around Thursday morning. By Thursday evening, the temperatures should be at or below freezing (22z to 2z) in most of the area. I favor it to be at or below freezing at 02z in the metroplex. GFS 12z seems more coldish (surprise, surprise), but the NAM (12z, have not looked at the 18z yet) looks not too dissimilar. Model QRF looks very overdone at the critical timeframe (where most of North Texas is at or below freezing). The situation is coming together, but I don't believe this will be a major winter event for the North Texas area (the models look overdone in some places; especially when compared to the surface plots.)

Predictions: Northwest counties may have some sleet/freezing rain during the day on Thursday. With the warm temperatures over the past few weeks, probably no or little accumulation. Metroplex area: Possible sleet in the evening, but I really think the GFS and NAM are overdoing it. It may be very hit or miss on precipitation. This does not feel like the situation last year (where we got freezing rain/sleet), where the NAM called correctly a post-frontal precipitation event. Southern counties probably will end up with rain.

I somewhat agree, what if any frozen precip that does fall will not stick, however I do feel that temps will run colder than what models are forecasting and that timing of front is to slow due to models inability to handle dense cold air masses running at ground level. Now for the precip I think the D/FW area will see some light sleet late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.

IF the models handel this coming arctic airmass well then you can look forward to another round early next week as well, this one with a better chance of precip.

[aggiecutter]

I agree with the above posters. I think this might be a wrap around event, brief change over, for sections of Northern Texas west and north of the metroplex. The rest of Northern-Northeastern Texas will probably see a cold rain. Keep your eye on the following week, though.

GFS ENSEMBLES

http://wwwt.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/ens/t ... 12712.html