Texas Winter 2013-2014

[dhweather]

That's the key 57, it's possibilities.


I'd love another 10" snow like we got a few years ago so my 3 year old could see it and play in it. What kid doesn't love snow? But reality is, we infrequently get snow. So all we have is hope, I just don't want folks to get their hopes up on something that is notoriously bad 10+ days out.


No more beating that dead horse, it looks like we will have a nice dry Christmas day, and seasonable temps.

[Red Raider fan]

-removed-: CHRISTMAS DAY 5" OF SNOW HERE IN SOUTH TEXAS. Ok realistically , I don't see anything like that happening here in south Texas. Looks like the forecasters are leaning more towards a seasonal Christmas.

[Red Raider fan]

Ok I'm gonna be honest here. I'm not a professional weather caster and don't know what y'all are talking about when you mention ensables, graphs and maps. Anomolies and 500 mb, I don't know what all those mean and I have tried to make heads or tails out of it since I have been a guest here before. So when I sign in all I will talk about is what the weather is doing in my neck of the woods. Hope eventually I will learn all about it one day. Just love to read and talk about winter weather.

[texas1836]

Ok I'm gonna be honest here. I'm not a professional weather caster and don't know what y'all are talking about when you mention ensables, graphs and maps. Anomolies and 500 mb, I don't know what all those mean and I have tried to make heads or tails out of it since I have been a guest here before. So when I sign in all I will talk about is what the weather is doing in my neck of the woods. Hope eventually I will learn all about it one day. Just love to read and talk about winter weather.

You're not alone. I think wxman57, Portastorm, vbhoutex and anyone else should team up and put together some high level training.

[Tireman4]

Ok I'm gonna be honest here. I'm not a professional weather caster and don't know what y'all are talking about when you mention ensables, graphs and maps. Anomolies and 500 mb, I don't know what all those mean and I have tried to make heads or tails out of it since I have been a guest here before. So when I sign in all I will talk about is what the weather is doing in my neck of the woods. Hope eventually I will learn all about it one day. Just love to read and talk about winter weather.

You're not alone. I think wxman57, Portastorm, vbhoutex and anyone else should team up and put together some high level training.

Met 101 Training. Yep, I like it.

[Portastorm]

The models are usleless 10 days out and a waste of time. IMO

Duly noted. But I trust you'll allow the rest of us to waste our time when we do discuss various model runs about the weather 240 hours and beyond. And we won't expect you to be in that discussion.

[lrak]

Ok I'm gonna be honest here. I'm not a professional weather caster and don't know what y'all are talking about when you mention ensables, graphs and maps. Anomolies and 500 mb, I don't know what all those mean and I have tried to make heads or tails out of it since I have been a guest here before. So when I sign in all I will talk about is what the weather is doing in my neck of the woods. Hope eventually I will learn all about it one day. Just love to read and talk about winter weather.

I've been here forever and still can't read a maps LOLs. If you see blue it means cold

[Portastorm]

That's the key 57, it's possibilities.


I'd love another 10" snow like we got a few years ago so my 3 year old could see it and play in it. What kid doesn't love snow? But reality is, we infrequently get snow. So all we have is hope, I just don't want folks to get their hopes up on something that is notoriously bad 10+ days out.


No more beating that dead horse, it looks like we will have a nice dry Christmas day, and seasonable temps.

I think I want to continue beating the "dead horse" a bit longer. To my knowledge, nobody was making decisions around here as a result of the discussion on this forum about a potential historic Arctic outbreak around Christmas. There were several posts where folks were asking others about best practices for preparing for these events. You nor I can control how people react or will react to any discussion here about a computer model run. It's nice that you don't want to "folks to get their hopes up", but you can't control that and to imply limiting such discussion to prevent that from happening is something I find a bit problematic. As I told you the other day, people come here to speculate, fantasize, discuss, whatever ... about the weather from today to weeks away from today. And I, in my role as moderator, will do everything I can to empower and enable those who participate in that discussion and to thwart any attempt to limit that discussion. And if someone thinks I'm out of bounds, PM one of the admins and call me on it. But until then ...

And you've made the comment that you're concerned that if someone shows up on the forum and jumps in during a discussion when folks maybe are excited about a particular model run(s) that they're going to get the wrong information. Well guess what? That's why we have forecast disclaimers at the bottom of our sigs. Nobody should trust their property or life based on a post from a non blue tag. We make that clear and for those who do not include the tag or disclaimer, we try to enforce the rule for that very reason.

[Portastorm]

Ok I'm gonna be honest here. I'm not a professional weather caster and don't know what y'all are talking about when you mention ensables, graphs and maps. Anomolies and 500 mb, I don't know what all those mean and I have tried to make heads or tails out of it since I have been a guest here before. So when I sign in all I will talk about is what the weather is doing in my neck of the woods. Hope eventually I will learn all about it one day. Just love to read and talk about winter weather.

You're not alone. I think wxman57, Portastorm, vbhoutex and anyone else should team up and put together some high level training.

This is a very good idea and something I will discuss with wxman57, vbhoutex, srainhoutx, Ntxw, and the mods/admins. We could develop a sticky note in the Winter Weather forum with some commonly used terms and what they mean.

We're all about folks learning more about weather here at Storm2K and the more you know, the more involved you can get in the discussion! Thanks everyone for the good idea.

[lrak]

Ok I'm gonna be honest here. I'm not a professional weather caster and don't know what y'all are talking about when you mention ensables, graphs and maps. Anomolies and 500 mb, I don't know what all those mean and I have tried to make heads or tails out of it since I have been a guest here before. So when I sign in all I will talk about is what the weather is doing in my neck of the woods. Hope eventually I will learn all about it one day. Just love to read and talk about winter weather.

You're not alone. I think wxman57, Portastorm, vbhoutex and anyone else should team up and put together some high level training.

This is a very good idea and something I will discuss with wxman57, vbhoutex, srainhoutx, Ntxw, and the mods/admins. We could develop a sticky note in the Winter Weather forum with some commonly used terms and what they mean.

We're all about folks learning more about weather here at Storm2K and the more you know, the more involved you can get in the discussion! Thanks everyone for the good idea.

That is a great idea, I'd love a sticky!

[wxman57]

Perhaps I can teach others how to enjoy heat and hate the cold?

[srainhoutx]

I would keep an eye on the Friday afternoon into late Saturday time frame. There are growing indications that the Baja upper low crossing Northern Mexico and finally approaching Texas on Saturday may have a bit of negative tilt suggesting a potential severe weather episode may develop across portions of Central/N/SE Texas and points NE. It also appears that there is growing potential for lee side cyclogenesis or a strong surface low pressure system developing near the Panhandle and heading ENE during the weekend. We have transitioned from discussing a potential Arctic Outbreak to that of a potential severe weather event. That is certainly a swing and very typical of our weather extremes in Texas during December.

[ouamber]

Hello all my Texas buddies:) I know that this is the Texas forum, but the mets on here really know their stuff. Since this weekend is a heavy travel weekend for Christmas, what are your thoughts on the big low tracking across TX or OK on Fri-Sun? Do models usually underestimate the cold...basically is there a chance the projected track of the 12Z Euro go south with the big snows? I live in Tulsa, OK but family will be traveling to eastern Iowa next weekend. Thanks for everything you do for this forum:)

[Portastorm]

Perhaps I can teach others how to enjoy heat and hate the cold?

It must be working ... even I'm enjoying today's weather, the sunshine, and warmer temperatures.

[dhweather]

After a chilly 7-10 days, that 65 outside right now feels really nice.

[gboudx]

I would keep an eye on the Friday afternoon into late Saturday time frame. There are growing indications that the Baja upper low crossing Northern Mexico and finally approaching Texas on Saturday may have a bit of negative tilt suggesting a potential severe weather episode may develop across portions of Central/N/SE Texas and points NE. It also appears that there is growing potential for lee side cyclogenesis or a strong surface low pressure system developing near the Panhandle and heading ENE during the weekend. We have transitioned from discussing a potential Arctic Outbreak to that of a potential severe weather event. That is certainly a swing and very typical of our weather extremes in Texas during December.

Steve McCauley discussed this on his FB page over the weekend. He posted a graphic which showed the instability over the DFW area on Saturday and mentioned if this was Spring, we would have trouble on our hands. He said 3 pieces of energy are going to merge and cause this.

[dhweather]

Hello all my Texas buddies:) I know that this is the Texas forum, but the mets on here really know their stuff. Since this weekend is a heavy travel weekend for Christmas, what are your thoughts on the big low tracking across TX or OK on Fri-Sun? Do models usually underestimate the cold...basically is there a chance the projected track of the 12Z Euro go south with the big snows? I live in Tulsa, OK but family will be traveling to eastern Iowa next weekend. Thanks for everything you do for this forum:)

Hi there.

First I'd say watch another 3-4 cycles of the models. We're right at 6 days out from Sunday, so things are far from set. I would personally watch the trends of the models for the next 3-4 runs and look for run to run consistency.

In general terms, the arrival of the cold air - the models often underestimate the speed at which a cold front associated with arctic air moves in. The temperature of the cold air, they generally do a pretty good job. Many things can factor in to this, for example, snow pack to the north. If there is snow pack to the north, that helps prevent the airmass from modifying warmer.

[ouamber]

dhweather: Thank you so much!!!

[Portastorm]

I hope a recap of the PWC 1pm press conference is posted. I missed it recovering from a nasty hangover today.

Funny you should mention that ... the PWC has cancelled its press event for the very same reason. PWC mets got too goosed up on the Grey stuff ... frustrated because the 500mb pattern changed, the projected cross-polar flow and -EPO blocking vanished from the models, and Sunday's board "outage." It's back to the drawing board or in this case -- the computer model board -- for the cold-loving meteorologists of the Portastorm Weather Center.

[texas1836]

I hope a recap of the PWC 1pm press conference is posted. I missed it recovering from a nasty hangover today.

Funny you should mention that ... the PWC has cancelled its press event for the very same reason. PWC mets got too goosed up on the Grey stuff ... frustrated because the 500mb pattern changed, the projected cross-polar flow and -EPO blocking vanished from the models, and Sunday's board "outage." It's back to the drawing board or in this case -- the computer model board -- for the cold-loving meteorologists of the Portastorm Weather Center.

Do you see anything in the long range we could get excited about? I would like to see something historic. I wanna put that wood stove to the test.