Texas Winter 2022-2023

[harp]

This place is dead. That’s never a good thing….

[Ntxw]

This place is dead. That’s never a good thing….

Warm times. 60s and 70s, some sunshine and spotty chances of rain. Check back mid January!

For now discussion is mainly what's possible mid month and the forces that might drive it.

[harp]

This place is dead. That’s never a good thing….

Warm times. 60s and 70s, some sunshine and spotty chances of rain. Check back mid January!

For now discussion is mainly what's possible mid month and the forces that might drive it.

Yes, I’m looking forward to those discussions!

[Portastorm]

Hope everyone here had a nice Christmas and weren't too negatively impacted by the bitter cold. Other than a frozen outside tankless water heater (lasted about 24 hours), I didn't have any issues. The notoriously shaky Austin Water system didn't break down and power outages seemed limited.

I have read the posts about 83 and 89 with interest. I wasn't in Austin in 83 but was in 89. It was miserable cold ... 4 degrees I believe was the coldest we got. Busted pipes everywhere once the thaw occurred and the duration of the cold itself was 3 days or less, I remember. The event which we just experienced wasn't as severe, at least here, as was 89.

I am surprised that some here think 83 or 89 was worse than Feb 2021. All I can share is what happened here and the duration of the cold, the severity of the cold, and the frequency of wintry precip was off the scale. The associated failure of local infrastructure was also off the scale. Nothing I have experienced in my 38 years in Austin comes remotely close to how bad it was in Feb 21. Frankly, I hope to never go through that again.

On to our current weather ... I'm intrigued by the recent comments of Cosgrove and Bastardi about later in January.

[Cpv17]

Hope everyone here had a nice Christmas and weren't too negatively impacted by the bitter cold. Other than a frozen outside tankless water heater (lasted about 24 hours), I didn't have any issues. The notoriously shaky Austin Water system didn't break down and power outages seemed limited.

I have read the posts about 83 and 89 with interest. I wasn't in Austin in 83 but was in 89. It was miserable cold ... 4 degrees I believe was the coldest we got. Busted pipes everywhere once the thaw occurred and the duration of the cold itself was 3 days or less, I remember. The event which we just experienced wasn't as severe, at least here, as was 89.

I am surprised that some here think 83 or 89 was worse than Feb 2021. All I can share is what happened here and the duration of the cold, the severity of the cold, and the frequency of wintry precip was off the scale. The associated failure of local infrastructure was also off the scale. Nothing I have experienced in my 38 years in Austin comes remotely close to how bad it was in Feb 21. Frankly, I hope to never go through that again.

On to our current weather ... I'm intrigued by the recent comments of Cosgrove and Bastardi about later in January.

Yeah I feel ya about the severe cold. We just need some snow with temps in the 20’s. I think the severe cold is hella cool and exciting for me, personally, to experience but would much rather have 28 degrees with snow.

[wxman57]

I am surprised that some here think 83 or 89 was worse than Feb 2021. All I can share is what happened here and the duration of the cold, the severity of the cold, and the frequency of wintry precip was off the scale. The associated failure of local infrastructure was also off the scale. Nothing I have experienced in my 38 years in Austin comes remotely close to how bad it was in Feb 21. Frankly, I hope to never go through that again.

On to our current weather ... I'm intrigued by the recent comments of Cosgrove and Bastardi about later in January.

1983 and 1989 definitely were colder and the cold lasted longer than 2021. We hit single digits in Houston in 1989 with highs in the 20s. In both 1983 and 1989, Houston was below freezing for 5 days. Interesting that both the 1983 and 1989 (and 2022) freezes came in the days leading up to Christmas. Lower graphic shows the records from 1983 and 1989. Note that I didn't update that graphic to include 2021, but we weren't nearly as cold. However, both were a relatively dry cold as compared to the icy 2021 event across Texas. Here's a map comparing coldest temps of the three freezes. The 2021 event was colder across NE TX in terms of coldest temperature reached. The graphic doesn't compare the length of time below freezing.

[Iceresistance]

I’m currently in Springfield, MO and there is at least 1-2 inches of snow left over from the December 22nd and 24th snow.

I am visiting my great grandparents for the first time since 2019 for Winter. Glad I made it there!

Severe storms in Arkansas on the 29th, and could be a much larger outbreak setup on January 2nd just to the east for now.

[CaptinCrunch]

1983 #1
It was the extreme cold, and natural gas shortages. I do remember some frozen precip on the ground, but I think it was the prolong extreme cold we remember. Avg high was 24 and avg low was 11 if I remember correctly.
Most consecutive hours below freezing: 295 (7 am Dec 18 - 2 pm Dec 30, 1983)

2021 #2
139 hrs consecutive hours below freezing: 5 pm Feb 13 - 12 pm Feb 19, 2021 (An additional 93 hours occurred from 5 pm Feb 9 to 2 pm Feb 13, 2021. The temperature climbed to 33 degrees 3 to 4 pm on Feb 13. Combined with the 139 hours above, this makes a total of 232 nonconsecutive hours.) This combined with several rounds of snow and several inches on the ground, and hitting a low of -3, but I think the BIG thing was the complete failure of the states power stations. It's the only time in my life I can recal the entire state of Texas being covered in ice/snow at one time.

1989 #3
This arctic outbreak lasted several days, however it was dry. DFW recorded a low of -1 on Dec 23rd

[orangeblood]

Mild warming trend has begun. Surface pressure anomalies across North America are low so no real cold air around. With the high SOI spike of late probably some underachieving with any qpf forecasts as well.

While all this is going on the next phase for cold is occurring with warming of the stratosphere. These bonafide Aleutian low configurations typically do produce an event, especially if it is long lasting. They attack the strat PV and build cold over Siberia. We'll have to wait and see what kind of response the EPO has down the road but that is far off.

Lucky strat forecasts in model world is not a tough one to make since it is not as complex.

https://i.imgur.com/QSjRQlT.gif

This PV is now stronger than it’s ever been this time of year, will be difficult to break this one…seems like we’ll need a another much stronger warming event than currently forecast to shake things up for a sustainable period. Otherwise, cold shots should be short lived with quick warm ups

[Ntxw]

Mild warming trend has begun. Surface pressure anomalies across North America are low so no real cold air around. With the high SOI spike of late probably some underachieving with any qpf forecasts as well.

While all this is going on the next phase for cold is occurring with warming of the stratosphere. These bonafide Aleutian low configurations typically do produce an event, especially if it is long lasting. They attack the strat PV and build cold over Siberia. We'll have to wait and see what kind of response the EPO has down the road but that is far off.

Lucky strat forecasts in model world is not a tough one to make since it is not as complex.

https://i.imgur.com/QSjRQlT.gif

This PV is now stronger than it’s ever been this time of year, will be difficult to break this one…seems like we’ll need a another much stronger warming event than currently forecast to shake things up for a sustainable period. Otherwise, cold shots should be short lived with quick warm ups

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FlBSDv2X0AAup9A?format=jpg&name=large

We don't really need a SSW in truth. The whole point of one is to sustain if not tank the AO which is already at negative tendencies this season. It would be nice to sustain it through Feb with a SSW so that we don't go to torch pattern.

[Portastorm]

Hey wxman57, that was a very interesting post (with graphics). Appreciated seeing that. I suppose it depends on what part of the state you're in to compare 1983-1989-2021. For example in 1989, it hit 4 degrees in Austin on 12/23 but by 12/25 we had a high of 70. The 1983 event here had a long duration 5-6 days just like the 2021 event.

[Iceresistance]

Mild warming trend has begun. Surface pressure anomalies across North America are low so no real cold air around. With the high SOI spike of late probably some underachieving with any qpf forecasts as well.

While all this is going on the next phase for cold is occurring with warming of the stratosphere. These bonafide Aleutian low configurations typically do produce an event, especially if it is long lasting. They attack the strat PV and build cold over Siberia. We'll have to wait and see what kind of response the EPO has down the road but that is far off.

Lucky strat forecasts in model world is not a tough one to make since it is not as complex.

https://i.imgur.com/QSjRQlT.gif

This PV is now stronger than it’s ever been this time of year, will be difficult to break this one…seems like we’ll need a another much stronger warming event than currently forecast to shake things up for a sustainable period. Otherwise, cold shots should be short lived with quick warm ups

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FlBSDv2X0AAup9A?format=jpg&name=large

We don't really need a SSW in truth. The whole point of one is to sustain if not tank the AO which is already at negative tendencies this season. It would be nice to sustain it through Feb with a SSW so that we don't go to torch pattern.

The AO is now Slightly Negative, it will trend towards more negative in January.

For this PV that expected to become very strong to break, it’s either an extreme SSW or a prolonged one. If I recall correctly, did January 2021 feature a strong PV? Only for it to become significantly unstable by that powerful SSW and to show itself here in February 2021?

[Texas Snowman]

Facebook timeline memory from December 28, 2015:

@NWSFortWorth -- #Snow fell at #DFW Airport this morning (Dec 28). This is the 118th consecutive #winter season with #snowfall in DFW. #dfwwx #txwx

[Ntxw]

This PV is now stronger than it’s ever been this time of year, will be difficult to break this one…seems like we’ll need a another much stronger warming event than currently forecast to shake things up for a sustainable period. Otherwise, cold shots should be short lived with quick warm ups

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FlBSDv2X0AAup9A?format=jpg&name=large

We don't really need a SSW in truth. The whole point of one is to sustain if not tank the AO which is already at negative tendencies this season. It would be nice to sustain it through Feb with a SSW so that we don't go to torch pattern.

The AO is now Slightly Negative, it will trend towards more negative in January.

For this PV that expected to become very strong to break, it’s either an extreme SSW or a prolonged one. If I recall correctly, did January 2021 feature a strong PV? Only for it to become significantly unstable by that powerful SSW and to show itself here in February 2021?

StratPV by late Dec 2020 was within the average mean.

[Ntxw]

Hey wxman57, that was a very interesting post (with graphics). Appreciated seeing that. I suppose it depends on what part of the state you're in to compare 1983-1989-2021. For example in 1989, it hit 4 degrees in Austin on 12/23 but by 12/25 we had a high of 70. The 1983 event here had a long duration 5-6 days just like the 2021 event.

Would agree it depends where in the state you live. For the Austin area nothing really tops Jan 1949 (on par with 2021 for DFW). Bergstrom recorded -4F and Austin Mabry -2F.

For DFW the greatest single daily departures is 1899 followed by 2021 second.

1983 for duration and 1989 for quick sharpness. Both are most notable because of how far south into coastal Texas achieved. Other blasts were stronger for other parts of the state. All of these blasts don't register much on the records for Amarillo which were in the 1930s and 1950s.

[wxman57]

Hey wxman57, that was a very interesting post (with graphics). Appreciated seeing that. I suppose it depends on what part of the state you're in to compare 1983-1989-2021. For example in 1989, it hit 4 degrees in Austin on 12/23 but by 12/25 we had a high of 70. The 1983 event here had a long duration 5-6 days just like the 2021 event.

Each of those freezes affected various Texas locations differently. Having lived here in Houston for all three, 1983 and 1989 were definitely colder for a longer period than 2021. 1983 was particularly long-lived, though 1989 had a lower temperature (7F).

I used the website https://weatherspark.com/ to get hourly temperature data for Houston December 22-25 of 1989. The 1989 freeze was colder than 1983, but it didn't last as long. Look at those high temps on the 22nd and 23rd (23 and 26F).

[Ntxw]

Hey wxman57, that was a very interesting post (with graphics). Appreciated seeing that. I suppose it depends on what part of the state you're in to compare 1983-1989-2021. For example in 1989, it hit 4 degrees in Austin on 12/23 but by 12/25 we had a high of 70. The 1983 event here had a long duration 5-6 days just like the 2021 event.

Each of those freezes affected various Texas locations differently. Having lived here in Houston for all three, 1983 and 1989 were definitely colder for a longer period than 2021. 1983 was particularly long-lived, though 1989 had a lower temperature (7F).

I used the website https://weatherspark.com/ to get hourly temperature data for Houston December 22-25 of 1989. The 1989 freeze was colder than 1983, but it didn't last as long. Look at those high temps on the 22nd and 23rd (23 and 26F).

http://wxman57.com/images/1989.JPG

1899 not as consecutive for IAH but arguably the most severe stretch. Here is the period.



Jan 1930 IAH had a high of 27F and low of 5F (all time) on the 18th. These are the two greatest temperature departures for the site.

[Quixotic]

Just saying. We didn’t have 30MM people living here in 83. It was a low precip event. Had 2-4” on the 16th that remained on the ground until new years. Imagine the toll of 295 hours below freezing. Does anybody think they’ve invested in the grid? I don’t.

[wxman57]

Temperature in SW Houston has risen to 76F-77F under a partly cloudy sky. Much better winter weather. It is now warmer outside than in my office. Felt good to stand in the sunshine and not have my skin freezing solid. Time to get to work on repairing my wall.

[wxman57]

Just saying. We didn’t have 30MM people living here in 83. It was a low precip event. Had 2-4” on the 16th that remained on the ground until new years. Imagine the toll of 295 hours below freezing. Does anybody think they’ve invested in the grid? I don’t.

I remember that on Christmas Eve, 1983, the sky was clear but the south shore of Clear Lake (southeast Houston) reported an inch of lake-effect snow. Clear Lake was quite warm compared to the air moving across it from the north. Oil rigs 100 miles offshore were reporting snow. I'm getting cold just thinking about that freeze. Let's discuss some heat waves now.