Texas Winter 2013-2014

[TheProfessor]

It looks like wxman57 has almost the whole country in his grasp.
NOAA has temperatures in the 50s in a lot of North East cities.
It even has Cheyenne,WY hitting 50 degrees!

[wxman57]

Euro ensembles have a light freeze (30F) for Dallas next Saturday. Otherwise, above freezing through 10 days. Euro ensembles also indicate "Polar Vortex 2" over NE Hudson Bay in 14 days. That's quite a big difference from being over the Great Lakes like last time. Coldest 850mb temperature anomalies shift from being over St. Louis tomorrow to from northern Minnesota east across the Great Lakes in 2 weeks.

[Ntxw]

We don't need the PV it doesn't do much good for us, PV in the Hudson or Davis Straits with height rises in Alaska is our pattern (if you read McFarland's paper you will understand). I'm seeing a retrograding pattern may occur as the 500mb signal shifts back from early Jan favored east to Feb favored west. JB mentions this occured in 94 and 1918, while I don't enjoy his bias to the NE I do agree with this thinking as this is often the case late Jan and Feb most years.

[wxman57]

We don't need the PV it doesn't do much good for us, PV in the Hudson or Davis Straits with height rises in Alaska is our pattern (if you read McFarland's paper you will understand). I'm seeing a retrograding pattern may occur as the 500mb signal shifts back from early Jan favored east to Feb favored west. JB mentions this occured in 94 and 1918, while I don't enjoy his bias to the NE I do agree with this thinking as this is often the case late Jan and Feb most years.

In this case, though, the farther NE Polar vortex keeps the cold air much farther northeast as well - at least through January.

[Ntxw]

^ It does I definitely agree, my point was to emphasize all this talk of PV when it never makes it to Texas, ever. It's well documented outbreaks involving PV almost always sends a bundled core of cold to Lakes and NE. What we need is -PNA trough with -EPO to spill cold oriented from SW NA to Greenland. Our arctic outbreak are from Arctic Highs not Arctic Lows.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

JB bringing up the 17-18 winter looked very valid. So far i feel like this winter has been a bit more west based than that year. I still think we have one more big time cold coming. Big time as in 20's for lows in Houston. Maybe mid 20's to be safe. Still a month left in winter and i think winter kind of cycles cold to mild about every six weeks. We shall see.

My instrument only registered .02 an inch of rain last night, that accurate? All that drama and just .02?

[orangeblood]

Deterministic and Ensemble members continue to trend towards the next cold period towards the end of the month. Both the WPO and EPO are forecasted to flip negative around the 23rd by the GFS with the Euro even more bullish

[TheProfessor]

I really want it to be cold and snowy. But North Texas really needs any type of precipitation. Our lake levels are still well below normal.

[Portastorm]

Deterministic and Ensemble members continue to trend towards the next cold period towards the end of the month. Both the WPO and EPO are forecasted to flip negative around the 23rd by the GFS with the Euro even more bullish

Just noticed the forecasted indices myself. Encouraging news on the EPO/WPO. Couple that with a predicted positive PNA at that time and a little help from tropical forcing via the MJO (it continues to show a forecast of the index moving into Octants 7-8 but with a diminished strength) and we may have enough cold and active southern stream by the end of the month to be in business.

I agree with wxman57 in that the next 10 days appear to be dominated by a drier NW flow.

[weatherdude1108]

JB bringing up the 17-18 winter looked very valid. So far i feel like this winter has been a bit more west based than that year. I still think we have one more big time cold coming. Big time as in 20's for lows in Houston. Maybe mid 20's to be safe. Still a month left in winter and i think winter kind of cycles cold to mild about every six weeks. We shall see.

My instrument only registered .02 an inch of rain last night, that accurate? All that drama and just .02?

That is exactly what my station showed for all of yesterday. 0.02 an inch.

[Tejas89]

Heard the dreaded "elevated fire danger" in this morning's forecast on KRLD.

I don't remember winter wildfires, until the last few years. Speaks volumes about the severity of these droughts lately.

[weatherdude1108]

Deterministic and Ensemble members continue to trend towards the next cold period towards the end of the month. Both the WPO and EPO are forecasted to flip negative around the 23rd by the GFS with the Euro even more bullish

Just noticed the forecasted indices myself. Encouraging news on the EPO/WPO. Couple that with a predicted positive PNA at that time and a little help from tropical forcing via the MJO (it continues to show a forecast of the index moving into Octants 7-8 but with a diminished strength) and we may have enough cold and active southern stream by the end of the month to be in business.

I agree with wxman57 in that the next 10 days appear to be dominated by a drier NW flow.

The Ashe Junipers (a.k.a. Mountain Cedars) LOVE this drier NW flow! I am thankful I am one of the few people who are not allergic! Got a wikipedia article and some recent footage of it someone sent in. My eyes are feeling a stinging. So maybe I am allergic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juniperus_ashei

http://youtu.be/8pSwfmEGJkY

[Portastorm]

weatherdude1108, I've lived in Austin for a long time ... 30 years to be exact. And I saw something Saturday morning which I do not recall EVER seeing here. I was driving towards downtown from an elevated point southwest of the city which gave me a good vantage point. It looked like a fog was hanging just above the city despite the bright sunshine. At first it looked like smoke. Wasn't sure what it was. Thought it might be a ground fog. Then saw on Twitter an hour or two later -- from a local on-air met -- that it was actually cedar pollen! As you may know, the levels of cedar pollen in town are the highest they've been in recorded history. And, as you probably know, there are many sick folks in Austin as a result of cedar fever. Even with a daily antihistamine, it's still hard to not have at least *some* symptoms. But to see such heavy pollen hanging over the city was amazing!

This weather no doubt is only making it worse. Dry air, northwest flow ... no real good rain to wash it all out. (A-choo!).

[TeamPlayersBlue]

Yeah was in Austin this past weekend, and some of my friends are really struggling. Same here in Houston. You guys need a really good rain to sweep through and clear it out

[gboudx]

Mountain Cedar is 279ppm today in the DFW area which is high. I need to start up the allergy meds I guess.

[wxman57]

No more freezes in Houston this month, so says the 12Z GFS. No hot weather, either. Generally 30s-40s for lows and 50s-60s for highs.

[Ntxw]

Euro and the ensembles should be generating some buzz soon

[wxman57]

Euro and the ensembles should be generating some buzz soon

Because? I'm looking at the Euro through 192hrs and don't see much of interest. Ensembles through 132 hrs don't show much.

[orangeblood]

Euro and the ensembles should be generating some buzz soon

Yeah, GFS isn't that different - its just slower to retrograde the Western North American ridge. But I believe both should begin to build some fairly significant HP's across NW Canada over the coming days

[natlib]

I asked the master Larry Cosgrove if Texas was in a winter cancel scenario and he replied that it was way premature to think that yet. He said the subtropical jet stream provided strong evidence that winter isn't done with TX quite yet.

So there is hope!!!