Texas Winter 2014-2015

[BrokenGlassRepublicn]

Any one southeast of Dallas? Wondering if it is actually raining as hard as the radar shows or if it is showing melting snow aloft.

Nothing concrete to report, but my brother in Corsicana said it was "thundering and raining cats and dogs" down there. I ended up with .58 in Richardson and we had a few rumbles of thunder, too.

[Ralph's Weather]

Any one southeast of Dallas? Wondering if it is actually raining as hard as the radar shows or if it is showing melting snow aloft.

Nothing concrete to report, but my brother in Corsicana said it was "thundering and raining cats and dogs" down there. I ended up with .58 in Richardson and we had a few rumbles of thunder, too.

Sounds good to me. There is more convection than I expected so wanted to be sure. If we had a Arctic high to the north we would be dealing with some hefty snow or ice.

[gpsnowman]

Ok. We are well within the 10 day range for the New Years set up. Confidence is growing that we will see something to monitor in the days ahead. Hope the models don't lose the cold and moisture. Fun times ahead.

[Portastorm]

Watching the 12z GFS op run roll in now. At 192 hours (6z on 12/31), it brings a 1052 mb high into west central Montana. Classic trajectory for spilling Arctic air down the leeside of the Rockies and into Texas. The question is: how cold will the source region air be?

[ronyan]

12z GFS drops the arctic high straight into TX and is significantly colder at the surface than previous runs.

[Ralph's Weather]

Watching the 12z GFS op run roll in now. At 192 hours (6z on 12/31), it brings a 1052 mb high into west central Montana. Classic trajectory for spilling Arctic air down the leeside of the Rockies and into Texas. The question is: how cold will the source region air be?

12Z GFS shows temps fall below freezing here New Year's Eve evening and not rising above freezing until the afternoon of the 7th and not out of the 30s through the end of the run. Temps on the 2nd struggle to get to 20. All of this is without it laying down much snow or ice. Previous runs have been stormier down here with the high staying up north though still plenty cold. If we could get a snow storm out of the New Year's storm then a 1040 high to build down on top of that we could be talking near 0 here.

[Portastorm]

:uarrow: 12z GFS drops the arctic high straight into TX and is significantly colder at the surface than previous runs.

But also notice that it loses the coastal low and there's no upper level low to our southwest. The model starts to develop one off the California coast. So, this would be an Arctic plunge of air (assuming that's the source region) with no precip.

[aggiecutter]

:uarrow: 12z GFS drops the arctic high straight into TX and is significantly colder at the surface than previous runs.

But also notice that it loses the coastal low and there's no upper level low to our southwest. The model starts to develop one off the California coast. So, this would be an Arctic plunge of air (assuming that's the source region) with no precip.

I can't believe you didn't post this.

[PTrackerLA]

Latest GFS output showing a low of 20 and high of 31 for Jan 2nd here. Of course I'll be out of town and won't be able to save any of the plants if that happens .

[orangeblood]

Watching the 12z GFS op run roll in now. At 192 hours (6z on 12/31), it brings a 1052 mb high into west central Montana. Classic trajectory for spilling Arctic air down the leeside of the Rockies and into Texas. The question is: how cold will the source region air be?

Classic trajectory for Arctic Air discharge into Texas but unfortunately it corrects east with the trough, taking the overrunning type event off the table that previous runs have been showing. Makes more sense given the trough east of Hawaii, not allowing upper level energy to dig too much into the southwest US. Doesn't mean we won't have a winter weather system next week, just the prolonged type ice/snow event isn't depicted any longer - just one run, lets see if the Canadian/Euro catch on.

[ronyan]

Only 0.16" of precip for IAH on that 12z run. But also has a low of 20F and ~36 hrs sub freezing.

[ndale]

Watching the 12z GFS op run roll in now. At 192 hours (6z on 12/31), it brings a 1052 mb high into west central Montana. Classic trajectory for spilling Arctic air down the leeside of the Rockies and into Texas. The question is: how cold will the source region air be?

I can't remember where I read it, I think a Ryan Maue tweet, but it said once the air starts moving south it may open the door for the really cold air in Siberia to move into Canada and then south towards us.

[Ralph's Weather]

Watching the 12z GFS op run roll in now. At 192 hours (6z on 12/31), it brings a 1052 mb high into west central Montana. Classic trajectory for spilling Arctic air down the leeside of the Rockies and into Texas. The question is: how cold will the source region air be?

Classic trajectory for Arctic Air discharge into Texas but unfortunately it corrects east with the trough, taking the overrunning type event off the table that previous runs have been showing. Makes more sense given the trough east of Hawaii, not allowing upper level energy to dig too much into the southwest US. Doesn't mean we won't have a winter weather system next week, just the prolonged type ice/snow event isn't depicted any longer - just one run, lets see if the Canadian/Euro catch on.

It will be interesting to watch which pattern unfolds 30s and overrunning precip or 20s and pretty light precip. Either way January will def feel wintery.

[Big O]

:uarrow: 12z GFS drops the arctic high straight into TX and is significantly colder at the surface than previous runs.

But also notice that it loses the coastal low and there's no upper level low to our southwest. The model starts to develop one off the California coast. So, this would be an Arctic plunge of air (assuming that's the source region) with no precip.

I can't believe you didn't post this.

http://i269.photobucket.com/albums/jj79/Photo44_album/Untitled_zps635c4a0a.png

Which model run is showing this and what is the timeframe?

[wxman57]

12Z GFS is much weaker and farther west (similar to parallel run from 06Z) with the upper trof on New Year's. Thus. no major ice storm for Texas. It does indicate a few snow flurries for Houston with freezing rain/sleet down the coast. Way too much uncertainty to say for sure this far out.

Made a couple meteograms for Houston from the 12z GFS. Looks like I need to construct a huge cold air barrier up along the Red River before New Year's.

[Ralph's Weather]

Any one southeast of Dallas? Wondering if it is actually raining as hard as the radar shows or if it is showing melting snow aloft.

Nothing concrete to report, but my brother in Corsicana said it was "thundering and raining cats and dogs" down there. I ended up with .58 in Richardson and we had a few rumbles of thunder, too.

Steve McCauley had a good description on FB earlier describing the radar picking up the melting snow up high.

You see, the moment snowflakes melt in the atmosphere, they are able to send back a much stronger signal to the radar than ordinary raindrops. This is a phenomenon known as BRIGHT BANDING. And thus the radar "thinks" more rain is accumulating than what actually is.

[ndale]

12Z GFS is much weaker and farther west (similar to parallel run from 06Z) with the upper trof on New Year's. Thus. no major ice storm for Texas. It does indicate a few snow flurries for Houston with freezing rain/sleet down the coast. Way too much uncertainty to say for sure this far out.

The way cold air likes to sink straight south I don't know if I want to buy the eastward movement but then the models showing a massive ice storm over us or 6 inches of snow for Austin is not easy to buy into either. I would like snow, the ice storm I can live without. This place is pure chaos in icy weather.

[wxman57]

And so you folks up north won't feel left out, here's a meteogram for D-FW Airport. Below freezing New Year's Eve and staying below freezing for almost 5 days.

[Ralph's Weather]

At this point I think you have to go with a blend. I am calling for a moderate winter event on New Year's Eve and Day for a good portion of Texas followed by a high building south, but still allowing a few weak systems under it. I think no matter how things play out we will have trouble getting out of the 30s for the first week or so of January.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

I think that was the 06z GFS. Slams Texas with winter precip.

The 12z looks like it only provides a minimal amount of precip as the warm air pushes above the cold air coming in. In the 500mb chart, it certainly wants to hang some energy back like the models were showing last night, the low east of Hawaii does seem to be effecting it.