Texas Winter 2011-2012...

[Texas Snowman]

BREAKING NEWS: "This just in: Gray Goose News, the official news provider for the Portastorm Weather Center, has place an order for a large quantity of Heat Miser vodoo dolls and sharp tacks designed to flatten bicycle tires. Delivery is anticipated sometime in mid-January. More details as they become available."

[Portastorm]

That's pretty good, Snowman!

And there's an army of Occupy Storm2Kers ready to use those pins and tacks!

[Rgv20]

The 12zECMWF Ensemble Control Run is just downright COLD!!! With 850mb Temperatures -25C to -30C over Central Canada by mid month. Way to far out to get concern with details but it does look like the coldest air of the winter season by far for most of the US should arrive by the second half of the month.



12zGFS Ensembles are showing some nice blocking setting up in Alaska starting next weekend (Jan14-15) Interesting to note is that the GFS Ensembles have been consistent on showing positive 500mb Height Anomalies over Alaska for the last couple of days.

[aggiecutter]

This tweet from Bastardi should raise a few eyebrows. On the left is the 12z 16 day GFS Ensemble 500MB HEIGHT/ANOMOLIES that I posted earlier today. On the right, are the anomalies for December 22-23 1983 and the surface temperatures for December 23-27 1983.

https://twitter.com/#!/BigJoeBastardi/s ... 56/photo/1

[ThunderSleetDreams]

Aggie cutter... Who are ya on twitter? I'm an Ag on there as well and correspond with JB on twitter quite a bit

[aggiecutter]

I'm aggiecutter on twitter.

[Rgv20]

This tweet from Bastardi should raise a few eyebrows. On the left is the 12z 16 day GFS Ensemble 500MB HEIGHT/ANOMOLIES that I posted earlier today. On the right, are the anomalies for December 22-23 1983 and the surface temperatures for December 23-27 1983.

https://twitter.com/#!/BigJoeBastardi/s ... 56/photo/1

That was a brutal freeze here in the Valley!

Here is a nice recap from http://www.raingardens.com/psst/articles/artic03.htm

December 1983: The first bad freeze of the decade arrived in Brownsville on Christmas Eve 1983. Very cold weather had been entrenched in Texas for over a week when the big blow hit -- North Texas had experienced day after day of subfreezing weather, which each front colder than the previous. The low latitude of far South Texas had protected the area from the first few fronts, but on the 24th a severely cold air mass arrived which spared no area of the state. The temperature that day in Brownsville began sinking from 39° at midnight to 31° at 6:00 a.m. and 25° by noon, with an absolute minimum of 20° the next morning.

Most of the Valley was slightly colder -- McAllen recorded 19° and Weslaco had 17°. Though slightly shorter than the outbreaks of 1951 and 1962, this freeze brought a much longer sustained duration of temperature in the mid-twenties or below. Such a prolonged period of deep-freezing weather had not been seen in Brownsville since the previous century. It particularly resembled the cold outbreaks of 1852, 1873, and 1888.

This freeze may forever be known as the freeze that killed the palm trees in the Valley. Anyone who lived in the Valley before 1983 remembers well the thousands of tall slender Washingtonia robusta lining the local roads for mile after mile. The dead stumps were a sad sight on the Valley skyline for several years afterwards -- some still remain to this day. Citrus also received a good beating, the worst since 1951. The Valley got such a cleaning from 1983 it would almost make the worst freeze of the century seem anticlimactic.

[austinrunner]

The 12zECMWF Ensemble Control Run is just downright COLD!!! With 850mb Temperatures -25C to -30C over Central Canada by mid month.

That would not be unusually cold, maybe 1 or 1.5 standard deviations below normal.

[Rgv20]

Should clarify it is South Central Canada and I believe Climo 850 Temperatures is around -8C to -10C which in turn would be 15C to 20C below normal.

[austinrunner]

Siberia is expecting -70-80 low temps next week

Where are you getting this information? For which part of Siberia? The coldest I've seen on the GFS forecast maps for the next 2 weeks is around -55F, which is not that unusually cold.

[austinrunner]

:uarrow: Should clarify it is South Central Canada and I believe Climo 850 Temperatures is around -8C to -10C which in turn would be 15C to 20C below normal.

Like Winnipeg? GFS lowest surface temperature for that location over the next 16 days is forecast to be -25C. Lowest 850 mb forecasted temperature is -24C, with a surface temperature at that time of -19C.

Normal 850 mb temperature for Winnipeg is around -12C.

So, nothing terribly unusual in the 16-day GFS forecast for Winnipeg.

[iorange55]

Safe bet we'll be receiving the coldest temps of the winter come mid January. However, it is way too early to tell if we'll get any winter precip out of it!

At least, we'll finally have the cold air in place.

[austinrunner]

Safe bet we'll be receiving the coldest temps of the winter come mid January. However, it is way too early to tell if we'll get any winter precip out of it!

At least, we'll finally have the cold air in place.

Not according to the GFS. Highs at KATT around 70 and lows in the 50s.

[Rgv20]

Tonight's 0zGFS Ensembles continue to build some impressive 500mb Heights Anomalies over Alaska come mid January......This kind of pattern should help dislodged whatever cold air is up north.

[Ntxw]

PNA is going negative, with the EPO possibly going slightly negative. This means the brunt of the cold pool will first aim for the PAC NW and Western Canada for the next 1-2 weeks. But this is also the source region Mr. Heat Miser hates seeing when it is cold! Eventually things will translate downstream if that Alaskan block develops. I agree with Rgv and iorange, things are not going to stay the same! We saw this last January, it got very warm until the end of the month after the -EPO and when the PNA went positive things started to dislodge.

Edit: Canadian is showing some Arklatex mischief at hr 120-132

[Texas Snowman]

Bastardi says look out.

Cosgrove says maybe look out ("If the numerical models are correct, we will have our first -true- introduction of unmodified Arctic values in Houston late next week.").

Something tells me our beloved Wxman57 will have a rebuttal in the morning to try and dash all of our hopes, especially those at the PWC office!

[Ntxw]

Euro still has the system early week/weekend much like 12z. Looks a lot like Canadian but more intense. Maybe someone can get a miracle under it (this run likes PWC headquarters!) Looks cold enough aloft, and underneath the low surface cools too.

Edit: UK is similar to euro but shifts everything a bit more west,

[Shoshana]

So... came back from out of town and we have 1.5" of ice in the rain gauge. The temp gauge says 36...

The grass is wet around the rain gauge but not frozen.

Odd.

[austinrunner]

PNA is going negative....

The 14-day PNA forecasts for the last 120-days have been highly unreliable.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/p ... _ensm.html
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/p ... _mrf.shtml

[Portastorm]

PNA is going negative....

The 14-day PNA forecasts for the last 120-days have been highly unreliable.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/p ... _ensm.html
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/p ... _mrf.shtml

I'm not sure if you see the irony in calling out the quality (or lack thereof) of the PNA forecasts, yet you appear to be banking on GFS grid numbers for Austin's temps at the mid-month range. The 0z GFS operational run was vastly different from most of the ensemble members. But hey ... it's all good ... wxman57 needs some company in his "warmmongerer" camp and he appears to now have it.

The Grey Goose-swilling mets at the PWC say "let's see how things shake out in 10-12 days!"