Texas Winter 2014-2015

[Shoshana]

okie dokie...right now in south Austin we have 39 temp and 20 dewpoint...

North Austin 37 and DP 15

[BrokenGlassRepublicn]

Richardson checking in with a temp of 25 and a dew point of 4.

[Ralph's Weather]

29 with a dp of 10 here in Lindale. High was 51 around lunch. Got a new baby so I have not had a chance to study things as I used to, but I do not think hope is lost for snow along I-20.

[gpsnowman]

Richardson checking in with a temp of 25 and a dew point of 4.

Grand Prairie at 28 degrees. Temps are dropping fast in DFW even with the wind still blowing 20-23 mph. Impressive. How low will it go?!?

[dhweather]

23 with a dew point of 5 in Heath, which is why there will not be any precip here. Brutally cold and dry air.

ETA: Wind chill of 10.

ETA2: Barometer 30.848 - WOW

[Ntxw]

23 with a dew point of 5 in Heath, which is why there will not be any precip here. Brutally cold and dry air.

ETA: Wind chill of 10.

ETA2: Barometer 30.848 - WOW

This! This is one of the highest pressures we have seen in a while!

[gboudx]

Feeling itchy and staticky tonight. Update from jeff:

Arctic cold front is off the coast with strong northerly winds in place across the region. Cold air has lagged the frontal passage by several hours, but is rapidly advancing into the region with Caldwell down to 37 and DFW at 28 with a bone dry dewpoint of 2! Looks like widespread freeze will verify tonight (advective freeze) with hard freeze (25 degrees or lower for 2 hours) only impacting counties north of Harris County…roughly north of HWY 105.

Attention is then on the Friday night-Sunday morning time period as cold arctic air remains locked in place at the surface and actually a secondary arctic front moves across the region Friday afternoon. Upper level system near Baja will begin to move ENE toward TX resulting in moisture pushing back into the cold air mass…this process starts tomorrow and will feature first an increase in high and then mid level cloud cover during the day.

A weak short wave will move across the region Thursday night and Friday morning…while surface temperatures are expected to once again fall to freezing north of I-10, the low level air mass is very dry and expect little to no precipitation to reach the ground. Anything that does reach the ground would likely be in the form of an ice pellet or two.

Main Baja upper level system heads for TX Saturday and Sunday, but latest model guidance trends are slower with this system resulting in very little precipitation Friday night and Saturday when the surface air temperature will be in the 32-34 degree range across mainly the northern and western parts of Harris County. Sub cloud layer is very dry with dewpoints in the low to mid 20’s and temperatures in the mid 30’s likely resulting in much of the precipitation evaporating. An extensive review of the various model cross sections and soundings show a massive warm layer up to nearly 45 degrees only 2000 ft above the surface with the surface arctic dome only about 500-1200 ft thick. While dewpoints are very low…the amount of precipitation forecasted now in the various models only ranges from .01 to .10 of an inch… and this is just not enough precipitation to effectively evaporate toward the dewpoint. In fact all model forecast soundings show the low levels becoming moist on Saturday, not by the temperature falling toward the dewpoint, but by the dewpoint rising toward the air temperature. Additionally, any rain drop that might make it toward the surface would be brought through and nearly 9000 ft warm layer of air where the temperature is between 40-50 degrees….so that rain drop is going to be “warm” when it strikes the ground.

Baja storm system moves across Saturday night/Sunday with a significant increase in rainfall. Best thinking at the moment is that the very shallow arctic layer will be modified (warmed) by the heavier falling rainfall from above and the temperatures will actually slowly rise Saturday night into Sunday into the upper 30’s.

Current thinking is that any freezing rain/ice will remain north of Harris County (north of a line from Brenham to Livingston).

Note: WPC freezing rain probability graphics appear “aggressive” in their freezing rain potential for the area so they should be used with caution.

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/pwpf/wwd_a ... babilities

[TheAustinMan]

Since pressures are rising to near record highs, I thought I'd like to bring up David Roth of the Weather Prediction Center's marvelous pressure record maps, mapping monthly barometric pressures across the continental United States. In October last year I created a thread that makes these links a little more navigable.

Anyhow, I'm checking in to these wintry conditions from Oak Hill, just southwest of Austin. The pressure on my phone reads 1041.29 mbar at this time and nearby temperatures have fallen to around 34F or so with the dewpoint at 17F. Winds are not as strong as today but there are still a few 20-25 mph gusts out there. Some high clouds blowing west to east over this area but overall things are fairly clear and should allow for temperatures to continue falling to the hard freeze anticipated tonight.

[TexasF6]

Longhorn WX Center, NW Austin showing 32*F, dewpoints is 8*F, wind chill reached my bones! McCoy himself would shiver at such an uncompromising, fiercely cold wind! (Home update)

[Ntxw]

DFW is down to 24F and a dp of 1, 18z GFS had a low tonight of 22...yeah right. MOS continues to be the better option, mid to upper teens. Or even lower if we can keep the clouds out and have the wind go calm in the early morning hours.

[dhweather]

23 with a dew point of 5 in Heath, which is why there will not be any precip here. Brutally cold and dry air.

ETA: Wind chill of 10.

ETA2: Barometer 30.848 - WOW

This! This is one of the highest pressures we have seen in a while!

It's dropped a little, down to 30.844, down from a peak of 30.856 (1044.5 MB) - that is very impressive for the metroplex.

[dhweather]

9PM OBS from Wichita Falls - 30.92

[TheAustinMan]

Freeze (sub-32F/0C) line across Texas at 03:00 UTC (9:00 PM Central) in purple, with other near to below freezing isotherms. Source: Storm Prediction Center

[Portastorm]

At 9:15 pm, 34 degrees with a dew point of 9 here at the Portastorm Weather Center in scenic southwest Travis County.

[FriscoStorm]

30.94 = 1047.75 here in Frisco... 22° and still dropping...

[ndale]

32 degrees and dewpoint at 9 at 9:35 pm

[Tcu101]

I saw this yesterday in the NWS forecast discussion in Fort Worth. Does anyone know why light winds in artic airmasses have less effect on Radiational cooling than continental airmasses? Temps at 19.5 degrees in West Fort Worth

WINDS WILL DROP OFF QUICKLY WEDNESDAY EVENING AS THE
RIDGE AXIS MOVES OVERHEAD. ARCTIC AIRMASSES TRADITIONALLY DO NOT
SUPPORT RADIATIONAL COOLING AS EFFECTIVELY AS TYPICAL CONTINENTAL
AIRMASSES...BUT THE MOSTLY CLEAR SKIES AND LIGHT WINDS WILL STILL
LEAD TO LOW TEMPS IN THE TEENS AND 20S THURSDAY MORNING.

[weatherdude1108]

32 degrees with a dewpoint of 11, barometric pressure of 30.73 here at the Weatherdude center (10 pm reading).

[Ntxw]

There's a front coming for the Yucatan! Given they won't feel anything like we are, just likely a wind shift and maybe a tad cooler but still it's there!

[Shoshana]

29f dewpoint of 9 in North Austin @ 11:30

Eta fixed time