Texas Winter 2016-2017

[aggiecutter]

Severe Thunderstorm Warning for the Texarkana area. There are Tornado Warnings to my NE in Central Arkansas.

[gpsnowman]

I think it is getting to the point where rain would be a good thing, cold or not. A cold rain would be fine with me. As much as I would love to see a big snowstorm in DFW, Austin, or Houston, this dry pattern is getting boring. A big winter rain event would be great. Snow might come or it may not. I am pulling for the former obviously. Still a long way to go though. Snow Gods, do your magic.

[Ntxw]

If the -EPO and -WPO forecasts pans, it would be the most negative period thus far this winter. They are the key to the colder outcomes. AO/NAO will lower as well which means the southeast ridge will get a shove to the Caribbean for a little bit. If we can get the AO to trend negative that would keep it colder for longer

The latest Euro Ensembles are showing strong clustering again of above normal ridging over the Aleutians/Alaska region moving into the second week of January. The next few weeks is winter's climo for coldest averages. It would be really nice to see anomalous cold this time of year for cold lovers.

[gatorcane]

Is the GFS backing off on the cold? It appears so to me anyway. Maybe one of those situations where it shows it in the long range, then loses it, & gets it back inside a few days?

Yes it has backed off a little but it is just one run and it still shows some cold into Texas. Let's see what the 00Z guidance shows.

[Brent]

I think it is getting to the point where rain would be a good thing, cold or not. A cold rain would be fine with me. As much as I would love to see a big snowstorm in DFW, Austin, or Houston, this dry pattern is getting boring. A big winter rain event would be great. Snow might come or it may not. I am pulling for the former obviously. Still a long way to go though. Snow Gods, do your magic.

I am coming to agreement with this... we were talking about at work today how there just hasn't been any real rain in weeks or months... I just want a widespread soaker at this point. The snow well given where we live is never guaranteed, but of course I want to see it too, but first we need a good rain.

[JDawg512]

Meanwhile, in real weather, Austin set new record highs today with 84 at KATT and 85 at KAUS. Wxman57 remains firmly in control

Yup! The Heat Miser is dominating.



He's keeping the rain from Austin too...

[Ntxw]

I don't think we'll be seeing much heavy rain the next couple of months for a few reasons. First winter is the dry season and second it is a La Nina atmosphere. Tropical convection is strongest over Indonesia and the far WPAC which is not good for us. Partly the reason we can't seem to get a good bout of rain and most rain forecasts have underachieved as the central and eastern Pacific have mostly been devoid of a tropical convection to link.

[Ntxw]

With the NPO (WPO and WPO) going negative a lot of the cold will be centered in the plains and Rockies.

[ronyan]

I did receive over 5 inches of rain here in one day on December 3rd (6.5" over two days). That took me by surprise, it was one of the highest daily totals ever for December I believe.

[ronyan]

With the NPO (WPO and WPO) going negative a lot of the cold will be centered in the plains and Rockies.

http://i65.tinypic.com/ja81za.gif

Is it just me or does it seem like those outlooks rarely have higher probs for cold down here?

[aggiecutter]

I don't think we'll be seeing much heavy rain the next couple of months for a few reasons. First winter is the dry season and second it is a La Nina atmosphere. Tropical convection is strongest over Indonesia and the far WPAC which is not good for us. Partly the reason we can't seem to get a good bout of rain and most rain forecasts have underachieved as the central and eastern Pacific have mostly been devoid of a tropical convection to link.

I've had close to 7" of rain the past two days.

[Ntxw]

I did receive over 5 inches of rain here in one day on December 3rd (6.5" over two days). That took me by surprise, it was one of the highest daily totals ever for December I believe.

They are probability forecasts, it's easier to forecast colder than normal up north just as it is easier to forecast warmer than normal down south. If it's anomalously cold down south, odds are it's even colder up north to get all that cold down our way. It's not always the case though, every now and then you will see darker colors down south.

I've had close to 7" of rain the past two days.

You've been the jackpot lucky winner! Now share with us the money

[wxman57]

Wow! 84 degrees at Bush (IAH) today. The 40-mile bike ride felt good, not cool-ish like yesterday (only 80). I'm not liking what I'm seeing for next week. It may turn out to be seasonably cold (30s to 50s), but it won't beat today by a long shot.

Those of you that use Tropical Tidbits should take note that Levi's page is now on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/Tropicaltidbits

If you use his page regularly, as I do, then chip in a few bucks a month to help with his expenses. His goal is to reach $400/month support to offset expenses and upgrade servers.

[ThunderSleetDreams]

Wow! 84 degrees at Bush (IAH) today. The 40-mile bike ride felt good, not cool-ish like yesterday (only 80). I'm not liking what I'm seeing for next week. It may turn out to be seasonably cold (30s to 50s), but it won't beat today by a long shot.

Those of you that use Tropical Tidbits should take note that Levi's page is now on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/Tropicaltidbits

If you use his page regularly, as I do, then chip in a few bucks a month to help with his expenses. His goal is to reach $400/month support to offset expenses and upgrade servers.

Thanks wxman57... will do!

[Ntxw]

Thanks for the information wxman57. Tropicaltidbits is pretty much the go to for us here in the winter threads. We used to mostly post model graphics from the NCEP pages but unless you were a weather geek it was hard to understand them for the everyday reader. Tidbit's anomaly graphics from the guidance has been the most useful.

[Brent]

0z GFS much warmer next Wed/Thu so far. Cold never gets very far and retreats

now it dumps the cold at 300 hours...

[Cpv17]

0z GFS much warmer next Wed/Thu so far. Cold never gets very far and retreats

now it dumps the cold at 300 hours...

That's what I was trying to hint at earlier. To me it started on the 12z. This is now the third run in a row it has trended warmer.

[ThunderSleetDreams]

0z GFS much warmer next Wed/Thu so far. Cold never gets very far and retreats

now it dumps the cold at 300 hours...

That's what I was trying to hint at earlier. To me it started on the 12z. This is now the third run in a row it has trended warmer.

Stop paying attention to the surface temps on the runs and look at the 500 mb and trend..: cold is still coming

[Cpv17]

0z GFS much warmer next Wed/Thu so far. Cold never gets very far and retreats

now it dumps the cold at 300 hours...

That's what I was trying to hint at earlier. To me it started on the 12z. This is now the third run in a row it has trended warmer.

Stop paying attention to the surface temps on the runs and look at the 500 mb and trend..: cold is still coming

I'm trusting your word man lol

[Brent]

0z GFS much warmer next Wed/Thu so far. Cold never gets very far and retreats

now it dumps the cold at 300 hours...

That's what I was trying to hint at earlier. To me it started on the 12z. This is now the third run in a row it has trended warmer.

Stop paying attention to the surface temps on the runs and look at the 500 mb and trend..: cold is still coming

lol hey I hope you're right but I'm still bitter with how Christmas weather turned out... and I wanna see cold forecast within real range...

0z Euro still dumping cold into DFW on January 4th like last run, but bulk of the cold anomalies remain north of Texas at the end of the run. Still DFW stays below freezing on January 5th. No precip.