Texas Winter 2021-2022

[Cerlin]

Anytime I see Joe Bastardi saying something, I can pretty much assume it to verify. The man is a legend.

[orangeblood]

Note that the GFS is by far the coldest of the models, with the highest freezing rain/sleet totals. Euro doesn't even have Houston getting below freezing. Only mid 20s Thu-Fri in DFW on the 00Z Euro. ICON is warmer than the GFS, too. Arctic air won't even be coming down the Northern Plains until Tuesday. We'll have a better idea what will happen once we can "see" what we're dealing with.

Can we really give Euro any credence after last February temp debacle ?

[HockeyTx82]

DFW NWS is sounding like wxman57 with the perceived ice threat. There’s much more to their discussion but didn’t want to post all of it. Most anyone who posts here knows how to find it. Time to start prepping. I hope ERCOT has their stuff in order.

Precip-Type Forecast:
Precip will begin as rain with both the temperatures aloft and on
the surface above freezing. As the cold air near/just above the
surface continues to funnel south, the warm nose (portion of
atmosphere above freezing) overhead is forecast to be around 3-5
kft thick with peak temperatures around 40-45 degrees, meaning the
precip will melt and become all liquid as it falls. Once the
surface temperatures fall below freezing, the liquid precip will
freeze on contact. Wind speeds around 20-25 mph will efficiently
expel heat from surfaces and allow ice to accumulate shortly after
the air temperature drops below freezing. As temperatures continue
to fall, the p-type will likely changeover to sleet as the liquid
water freezes before reaching the surface. This event is starting
to have the makings of accumulating sleet on top of a light
glazing of ice. As the cold air continues to move south, the warm
nose will erode and change the precip over to snow. For now, this
full changeover to snow is most likely over Western North Texas
early Thursday morning. The upper trough will then swing over the
region Thursday and bring a chance of snow to all of North Texas.
All precip should end Thursday evening. It`s still too far out to
provide a reliable ice, sleet, or snow accumulation forecast, but
we will likely start to provide one tomorrow.

If we get ice like Wxman57 is saying prepared or not, downed lines will causes outages. My brother-in-law had power the whole time last year, by a hospital, so he has a false sense he's immune to outages now. I'm like dude, if your power line snaps you will lose power.

I'm excited yet not wanting the full force of mother nature on this one. It could be days before power comes back on if lines go down. This will not be a rolling blackout situation, maybe. Just outages from downed lines.

The politics from any deaths or power outages will be such a hot button topic from now until November. I'm not looking forward to any of it.

[Brent]

Note that the GFS is by far the coldest of the models, with the highest freezing rain/sleet totals. Euro doesn't even have Houston getting below freezing. Only mid 20s Thu-Fri in DFW on the 00Z Euro. ICON is warmer than the GFS, too. Arctic air won't even be coming down the Northern Plains until Tuesday. We'll have a better idea what will happen once we can "see" what we're dealing with.

Can we really give Euro any credence after last February temp debacle ?

Thats exactly why I didn't really worry about the dry slot up here it showed last night it's been so off about everything else

[Ralph's Weather]

I don't anticipate this to be one where ERCOT and electricity generation is the problem at least I hope not. Main issue seems to be ice collecting on lines and on trees near the lines.

[Snowman67]

Trying not to throw in the towel yet, but not looking promising for us in SE Texas.

Yeah I’m pretty bummed out about it. Maybe the mesoscale models will come in colder. They usually do. So maybe there’s still a little hope.

Yeah, I've definitely had my share of "surprise" winter events over the years. In some ways, those are better because you have no expectations leading up to it, as opposed to a lot of hype and then a non event occurs...

[rwfromkansas]

IWeathernet/Chris Robbins is on board.

With all I watch all in, looks to be big.

“DFW/N TX (Sun 1/30/22 at 5 am)
...Winter weather event mid/late week...
...Prepare now...

➤ I am not going to discuss accumulations this far out. However, I recommend that you begin preparing for both winter precipitation and a prolonged period of subfreezing temperatures (see my update posted yesterday and pinned to the top of the page).

➤ Winter precipitation with this event could cause power outages.

➤ As it looks right now, the optimal time frame for significant winter precipitation is Wednesday night through Thursday.

➤ This is a very preliminary forecast. I will post more details after I analyze the next full model suite later this morning.

Chris Robbins, Meteorologist, M.S., iWeatherNet”

[wxman57]

Note that the GFS is by far the coldest of the models, with the highest freezing rain/sleet totals. Euro doesn't even have Houston getting below freezing. Only mid 20s Thu-Fri in DFW on the 00Z Euro. ICON is warmer than the GFS, too. Arctic air won't even be coming down the Northern Plains until Tuesday. We'll have a better idea what will happen once we can "see" what we're dealing with.

Can we really give Euro any credence after last February temp debacle ?

I'm just stating facts. Euro doesn't have a good history with this kind of front.

[txtwister78]

Note that the GFS is by far the coldest of the models, with the highest freezing rain/sleet totals. Those two are connected. Euro doesn't even have Houston getting below freezing. Only mid 20s Thu-Fri in DFW on the 00Z Euro. ICON is warmer than the GFS, too. Arctic air won't even be coming down the Northern Plains until Tuesday. We'll have a better idea what will happen once we can "see" what we're dealing with.

Have my doubts about the Euro being able to handle these arctic airmasses this far south as we've seen before, however I think until we see other modeling (short range models) go in the direction of the GFS, you have to weigh that as well. Right now, it's probably something in between. ICON has been fairly consistent though and just a tad bit "warmer" so I would go with that model looking at everything objectively. CMC also in the ballpark and actually is "warmer" than the GFS. Can't believe I just typed that considering the cold bias that model is known to have.

[funster]

I think the ice storm warning criteria is for around 1/4 or 1/2 inch. Hopefully, we can stay under that amount of freezing rain in Dallas. Wxman57 posting the worrisome words.

[Ntxw]

Keep seeing continuing trend of faster changeover (colder 850s) and trowal feature. Both suggest we are going to more of a snow event (start with some sleet).

Ice zone may shift further east and south.

[wxman57]

By the way, you should know how your home is supplied with water up there in D-FW. Does the water supply come up through a slab into the interior (heated space), or does the line come up in an exterior wall? Do you have any water lines in the attic? Ideally, your attic should be well vented, particularly in winter, to keep moisture from condensing. Never put plastic bags on your vents like my father did. This means that the attic temperature will be very close to outside air temperature. If it gets as cold as the GFS is forecasting, then you may be without water for days. Don't drip faucets (that won't work for a hard freeze), turn off the main water supply and open up all valves to drain pipes. You don't want any water in the pipes if they freeze.

I remember staying in east Ft. Worth (off of Lancaster) at my father's house in the freeze of 1979. No central heat, and my step mother wouldn't let me run the gas space heater (stupid CO). When I woke up the next morning, I had long icicles hanging from the WOOD window! Went outside and found that the white ground wasn't snow, it was a 1" layer of solid ice from sleet (thunderstorm overnight). Unfortunately, my old Opel Manta had lost a window in a parking lot accident shortly before. I drove around with no drivers' side window that winter. The car did have a good heater. I looked a bit odd driving around with my window open and temps in the teens. Oh, and I remember that every time the temperature hit 15F or lower, my car would get air in the brake lines and I'd have to crawl under each wheel and bleed the brakes before driving. Ah the fun of cold weather. NOT!

[bubba hotep]

IWeathernet/Chris Robbins is on board.

With all I watch all in, looks to be big.

“DFW/N TX (Sun 1/30/22 at 5 am)
...Winter weather event mid/late week...
...Prepare now...

➤ I am not going to discuss accumulations this far out. However, I recommend that you begin preparing for both winter precipitation and a prolonged period of subfreezing temperatures (see my update posted yesterday and pinned to the top of the page).

➤ Winter precipitation with this event could cause power outages.

➤ As it looks right now, the optimal time frame for significant winter precipitation is Wednesday night through Thursday.

➤ This is a very preliminary forecast. I will post more details after I analyze the next full model suite later this morning.

Chris Robbins, Meteorologist, M.S., iWeatherNet”

Chris is very conservative with his public post, when he post about winter weather you can basically lock it in.

[wxman57]

Keep seeing continuing trend of faster changeover (colder 850s) and trowal feature. Both suggest we are going to more of a snow event (start with some sleet).

Ice zone may shift further east and south.

Possible, but we really won't be too confident until maybe Tuesday evening's model runs Have to see what we're dealing with in the Plains, first.

[Wntrwthrguy]

What’s the latest on what we can expect in the Austin area?

[bubba hotep]

Both 00z & 06z GEFS put DFW at 7 F. That is a strong signal for extreme cold.

[Ntxw]

Keep seeing continuing trend of faster changeover (colder 850s) and trowal feature. Both suggest we are going to more of a snow event (start with some sleet).

Ice zone may shift further east and south.

Possible, but we really won't be too confident until maybe Tuesday evening's model runs Have to see what we're dealing with in the Plains, first.

Yeah I do plan on some ice but was pointing out the trending shift from several days. Those in east Tx and central Texas (northern portions) may want to prep as well should the trend continue.

[opticsguy]

Wxman. New construction has PEX water lines in the attic. In our neighborhood the PEX is outside the insulation in the walls, with just the gray foam tube insulation and an 8th inch of fibreboard between the water lines and the brick exterior. Below 15F faucets and toilets on exterior walls stop working, but no burst pipes.

[Haris]

What’s the latest on what we can expect in the Austin area?

Light freezing rain and sleet. Glaze to tenth inch. It only takes 0.01 to shut us down. Just stay off the roads Thursday if possible. Still TBD if heavier ice zone shifts S. If it does, threats increase.

[txtwister78]

ICON says look out HC and Central/NE Texas also. Trough digs a little further south on this 12z run to create some decent QPF with temps at that time below freezing across those areas.