Texas Winter 2016-2017

[ThunderSleetDreams]

It could freeze down in parts of the RGV tonight into tomorrow morning. Not everybody but further inland. Brownsville will be 34-36 but up the river 32-34.



I digress, discussion from a week ago...

I've been skeptical of the GFS' temps. You're right though it's not often you see that -EPO like that strong and DFW barely brushes freezing. I guess it could happen since the southern US is zonal especially with the trough is flat like the GFS shows but it doesn't happen often.

Except this airmass is coming from a source region that is frigid. The last big front we had was in a very progressive pattern and the airmass bled south. This one is colder and the EPO is even more on our side.

Sometimes it just pays to go old school and toss the models aside.

[bubba hotep]

Another great AFD from FWD:

902
FXUS64 KFWD 061745
AFDFWD

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Fort Worth TX
1145 AM CST Fri Jan 6 2017

.MESOSCALE UPDATE...
This section is a technical discussion of the dynamics for winter
precipitation to point out the features we are watching closely
through the afternoon. The forecast remains on track. See
earlier update for that type of forecast information.

Precipitation is continuing north of I-20 as the upper level
shortwave trough approaches. This is causing frontogenetical lift
to increase near 700 mb which is the critical layer for
precipitation in this event. Parcels lifted near 700 mb are in a
region characterized by weak convective instability (CI) or
conditional symmetric instability (CSI) as depicted by EPV*
charts. The strongest frontogenesis at 700 mb coincides very well
with the location of a band of heavier snow from roughly Lawton,
OK to Hobbs, NM. This band is tracking southeast, along with the
best frontogenesis forcing, and therefore we can use 700 mb
frontogenesis forecasts as a proxy for the location of heavier
snows.

While a radar loop would imply that this band will be tracking
through North Texas around mid afternoon, there a couple of
factors that will cause this precipitation to weaken. The first
being that all models forecast the frontogenetical lift at 700 mb
will begin to weaken by mid to late afternoon. The second more
important reason is that rapid drying is forecast to occur near
and above 700 mb around 2 or 3 pm from west to east over North
Texas. This will obviously limit the moisture for significant
precipitation but it will also result in increasing stability
aloft that will end potential for CI/CSI. We should see the impact
of this dry air with radar echoes clearing out rapidly from west
to east across the CWA between 2 pm and 5 pm.

If we don't start seeing an erosion of these echoes by 3 pm in
our western counties, it will be because the models likely have
miss-diagnosed the amount of dry air. This would result in
slightly higher amounts of snow along and north of I-20, but even
in this case we're talking only a half inch more than currently
forecast.

TR.92

[Ntxw]

Yeah there are light returns now in Tarrant county moving towards Dallas county. Should be interesting to see if posters are seeing some ground truth.

RH at 700mb is still fairly moist. Hasn't dried yet near and long I-20

[Ntxw]

As I say that, I can verify there is snow flurries in Irving east side of the airport

[TeamPlayersBlue]

Kind of sad, this possibly could have been snow today for us in SE Tx if heights were a bit lower above. Getting steady drizzle and rain while im working on my car outside. Loving it!

[SouthernMet]

Still watching a snow band from W falls - Haskell - Snyder line. Will be interesting to see if it holds together into the metroplex in a few hours.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

FYI, last year during our blow-torch winter, the Texas Winter Weather Thread had 184 pages.

This year? While we haven't had the big events that any of us want just yet, the threat of winter weather and two powerful Arctic blasts have us standing at 159 pages...and counting...on January 6th.

Hang in there everybody, the winter of 2016-17 is greater than the winter of 2015-16...by a long shot. And the best is yet to come.

It's been a bipolar winter. Even more bipolar than the infamous event of March 2014. See below

Wxman57 bet vs TeamPlayersblue

Uhh oh...I remember this...here we go....

Yeah, i got lucky

GFS sees 24 degrees for Sugar Land tomorrow morning. Goodness. What a change its been in the last 48 hours.

[Brent]

Snow flurries in Wylie

Have officially beaten last winter

[ThunderSleetDreams]

Another Winter Wx observation in Houston.

Since 2007, there has only been one Winter season without an observation. 2015-2016.

That's pretty insane when you think about it.

[Ntxw]

Some radar returns west of Fort Worth. Maybe DFW is getting lucky? It wouldn't take much with such cold temps. The dandruff is getting more numerous outside.

[Stormcenter]

Sleeting in Beaumont.

[TarrantWx]

Driving around North Fort Worth and the precip is definitely picking up. Strangely it seems to be mixed with sleet or graupel at times

[hookem2588]

Just walked outside employer here in Farmer's Branch, very small flakes are falling.

[CaptinCrunch]

nothing to report here in DT FTW, other than a few peeks of sun. NVM, just started with some lite precip. Not really flaky but more grainy!

[Ntxw]

Driving around North Fort Worth and the precip is definitely picking up. Strangely it seems to be mixed with sleet or graupel at times

I noticed the crystal clumps too. Kind of like what a poster up near the falls was saying earlier. It isn't sleet though, it looks like a bunch of snowflakes clumped together.

[WacoWx]

Short-lived flurry near SMU.

[TheProfessor]

Driving around North Fort Worth and the precip is definitely picking up. Strangely it seems to be mixed with sleet or graupel at times

I noticed the crystal clumps too. Kind of like what a poster up near the falls was saying earlier. It isn't sleet though, it looks like a bunch of snowflakes clumped together.

Wouldn't that indicate some sort of updraft, maybe only short lived?

[gboudx]

Wintry stuffs in Rockwall. Snow, graupel.

[CaptinCrunch]

Driving around North Fort Worth and the precip is definitely picking up. Strangely it seems to be mixed with sleet or graupel at times

I noticed the crystal clumps too. Kind of like what a poster up near the falls was saying earlier. It isn't sleet though, it looks like a bunch of snowflakes clumped together.

That's exactly what I got here I-30/I-35 area and a decent flurry at that.

[Ntxw]

Driving around North Fort Worth and the precip is definitely picking up. Strangely it seems to be mixed with sleet or graupel at times

I noticed the crystal clumps too. Kind of like what a poster up near the falls was saying earlier. It isn't sleet though, it looks like a bunch of snowflakes clumped together.

Wouldn't that indicate some sort of updraft, maybe only short lived?

Could be, not sure. I took a picture against a dark trash bin up close and you can see the snowflake crystals and then the clumps