Texas Winter 2015-2016

[Ralph's Weather]

It does look like there could be some very light flurries or sprinkles Thursday evening and night along and mainly north of the Red River. Otherwise the remainder of this week looks dry and cool. Next week looks mild and showery at least until near Christmas. 12Z GFS shows no Arctic outbreaks in the next couple weeks, it does have an end of run Nor'Easter.

I think it will be difficult for any snow to reach the ground, as it will be falling from a mid-level cloud deck and the lower levels will be fairly dry.

I tend to agree with this, only hope is for El Nino surprise moisture. Either way a non-event except for the very desperate for snowflakes (which most of us are). Many more better chances starting about a month from now. We can all remember that besides Nuri we had nothing until late Feb last year and still ended up with some good seasonal totals.

[Ralph's Weather]

There is, per modeled, cold air pooling in our source region late in the period should the pattern become conducive to delivery

Getting closer or almost right on top of the winter solstice is a big factor in this as well. Really allowing that cold air mass to b uild very quickly

Between the short days and hopefully a breakdown of the PV plusa relaxing of the El Nino fire hose hopefully coming before long. Cold should begin to return in the next few weeks. It does suck right now to not have any prospects of cold before Christmas.

[Brent]

FWD's AFD is grim:

UNSEASONABLY STRONG RIDGING WILL BUILD INTO THE GULF OF MEXICO
DURING THE LATTER HALF OF NEXT WEEK...RESULTING IN UNSEASONABLY
WARM WEATHER FOR THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY WEEKEND. PRECIPITATION MAY
IMPACT TRAVEL PLANS IN THE SOUTHERN PLAINS...BUT WITH WARM
TEMPERATURES...THIS PRECIPITATION SHOULD BE OF THE LIQUID VARIETY.

The Weather Channel's 15 day forecast has a rainy pattern beginning Christmas Eve going all the way out as far as the forecast goes(December 30th)

[dhweather]

Check out the latest Scripps forecast....Could we possibly be looking at a Super La Nina next fall/winter!! It appears this Super El Nino is about to undergo a major free fall...

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/ ... 016-09.jpg

Of course, record flooding immediately followed by record drought. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Not.......

[Brent]

Check out the latest Scripps forecast....Could we possibly be looking at a Super La Nina next fall/winter!! It appears this Super El Nino is about to undergo a major free fall...

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/ ... 016-09.jpg

Of course, record flooding immediately followed by record drought. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Not.......

You know it's coming... people are sick of rain so now they can be sick of it not raining again.

The GFS is showing more consistent colder air beyond 300 hours... all the way through to January 1 2016... and yes I know... but this pattern is trash.

It's also a lot cooler than the Euro on Christmas... would be more seasonal(pray it verifies over the Euro )

[1900hurricane]

That anomaly map looks weird to me. No anomalies of any kind anywhere else? Everything else is progged to be within .5*C of normal?

[Ptarmigan]

Check out the latest Scripps forecast....Could we possibly be looking at a Super La Nina next fall/winter!! It appears this Super El Nino is about to undergo a major free fall...

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/ ... 016-09.jpg

Looks like a Modoki La Nina.

Past Modoki La Nina
1973–1974
1975–1976
1983–1984
1988–1989
1998–1999
2000–2001
2008–2009
2010–2011

http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... 012-5423-5

Some of the strongest La Nina were Modoki La Nina.

[Ptarmigan]

Here are the daily EPO values for roughly the last month or so. This probably explains the weather quite a bit temperature wise

Code: Select all

2015 11 11  128.38
2015 11 12  167.76
2015 11 13  198.34
2015 11 14  159.16
2015 11 15  126.95
2015 11 16  140.82
2015 11 17  179.52
2015 11 18  104.54
2015 11 19    3.80
2015 11 20  -39.45
2015 11 21  -64.11
2015 11 22  -83.38
2015 11 23 -119.15
2015 11 24 -175.60
2015 11 25 -210.80
2015 11 26 -205.72
2015 11 27 -143.95
2015 11 28 -136.50
2015 11 29 -123.55
2015 11 30  -33.25
2015 12 01   32.91
2015 12 02   45.16
2015 12 03   86.42
2015 12 04  127.56
2015 12 05  102.18
2015 12 06  130.56
2015 12 07  210.71
2015 12 08  231.63
2015 12 09  241.78
2015 12 10  193.28
2015 12 11  118.79
2015 12 12  105.06
2015 12 13   76.54

EPO is often overlooked. It has much influence than NAO/AO.

[Brent]

GFS has winter to open 2016 too bad it's the usual 2 weeks out

[weatherdude1108]

Wonder if that map is what Bob Rose was referencing in his blog yesterday (?). Yes, two weeks out, in perpetuity.

Long-range forecast data suggests a wet and unsettled pattern will develop the weekend following Christmas when a large trough of low pressure in the upper atmosphere sets up over northwestern Mexico. Significant totals of rain will be possible. Stay tuned for more details as the forecast evolves.

http://www.lcra.org/water/river-and-wea ... ather.aspx

[Ntxw]

I really wish we had weather data in Texas going back to the massive Nino of 1877-1878. I'd like to know how the months panned out that year.

There is a lot of cold in the source regions as I said yesterday in NW NA depicted. No sign yet of delivery mechanism. Lets hope for a 1965 type reversal...we need the EPO to flip, the big Nino aleutian extended trof into Alaska isn't favorable.

Continue with the northeast heat. NYC is so warm avg wise for the month even if it got seasonably cold the rest of December they would still end up with the warmest Dec by a degree or two. But of course it will remain warmer thus blow all time monthly records out of water

[Yukon Cornelius]

Nice heavy frost this morning with temps around 26-27.

[TexasStorm]

GFS has winter to open 2016 too bad it's the usual 2 weeks out

Snow/Ice in DFW and rain to the north of us??

[Ralph's Weather]

GFS has winter to open 2016 too bad it's the usual 2 weeks out

Snow/Ice in DFW and rain to the north of us??

That is what a cold core upper low will do for you. The coldest temps are directly below the center of the low.

[ThunderSleetDreams]

Christmas Eve looks a bit cooler on latest GFS run. Waiting to see the rest of this run come through.

[Ralph's Weather]

12Z GFS also has the cold core upper low crossing the state the week after Christmas. This run is slightly too warm for snow, but at least the idea is not just a one run thing.

[Brent]

Still crazy to me to see the difference in the Christmas Day forecast...

GFS low/mid 50s(average)
Weatherbug 81(record high for Christmas lol)

Local mets seem to be going closer to 65-70 so far

The GFS also has a huge rain event the weekend after Christmas... 5 inches of rain at DFW and then at least more seasonal temps to close out the year.

[hriverajr]

Models are depressing if you like cold. Still no real delivery mechanism for cold air. At least we still have cold mornings here. (Del Rio)

[Ntxw]

Still crazy to me to see the difference in the Christmas Day forecast...

GFS low/mid 50s(average)
Weatherbug 81(record high for Christmas lol)

Local mets seem to be going closer to 65-70 so far

The GFS also has a huge rain event the weekend after Christmas... 5 inches of rain at DFW and then at least more seasonal temps to close out the year.

The run to run consistency and model to model hasn't been very good. That's because we are sitting between two extremes, the warmer east and colder west. If the low heights are a little further eastward in the plains then it's seasonal with a wet weather threat close by. If the ridge in the east is a little further west then it will be milder before the storm rolls in...I'd take the middle road until something more consistent is seen.


One thing noted, is indeed there is cold air in NW Canada beyond Christmas. The wind vectors just isn't flowing from that region rather Pacific still so nothing at this time to deliver it. The Arctic is bottled up with much cold. Of course not all of it is going to come down this way but hopefully the 500mb pattern will improve a little bit and push the western trough a little eastward with the undercutting jet come January. That's the flip case for the strong Nino maps I've been hollering at Right now the Aleutian low is too strong stretching through Alaska due to ENSO forcing. It needs to weaken and retreat back to the Aleutians first.

Currently up in Canada


A little down the road

[Ralph's Weather]

Models are depressing if you like cold. Still no real delivery mechanism for cold air. At least we still have cold mornings here. (Del Rio)

Looks like we will have to wait on the eventual breakdown of the PV before we get another Arctic shot. Hopefully that comes within the next month. Our best hope for cold right now is for the STJ to become active again. At least we are in the time of year now where even Pacific fronts bring freezing mornings to northern Texas at least.