Texas Winter 2010-2011

[benrayrog]

Good morning! I'm new here but a long time lurker. I currently live in Garland but I grew up in Sherman. My dad was a sherriff's deputy in the day before all the fancy radars, so he would have to go out storm chasing and I spent many days/nights out with him watching storms and tornados. So now I'm a weather junkie. Just wanted to introduce myself and say this winter weather is definitely NOT my fav!

Welcome!

[Tejas89]

Well, crud, I was hoping for a record low out of this extended freeze at DFW. No such luck. This morning was our best chance.

[txagwxman]

Light precip already starting to form west of Houston.

[GRAYSONCO.WX]

Light precip already starting to form west of Houston.

HRRR showing anything interesting?

[austinrunner]

NWS Austin/San Antonio apparently missed a new record low maximum of 26 degrees at Mabry on February 2. I could not find an announcement of this event. The all-time lowest maximum temperature at Mabry/Mueller Airport is 20. When was the last time that Mabry failed to reach 30 for a high?

[austinrunner]

Light precip already starting to form west of Houston.

HRRR showing anything interesting?

Yep!
http://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrrconus/ ... =t5&wjet=1

Between 7pm and 8pm tonight, between .1 and .5 inches of snow progged to accumulate in Travis and Williamson counties.
http://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrrconus/ ... =t5&wjet=1

[GRAYSONCO.WX]

Light precip already starting to form west of Houston.

HRRR showing anything interesting?

Yep!
http://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrrconus/ ... =t5&wjet=1

Between 7pm and 8pm tonight, between .1 and .5 inches of snow progged to accumulate in Travis and Williamson counties.
http://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrrconus/ ... =t5&wjet=1

Very interesting indeed! The last couple frames of the run show a lot of precip developing around the waco area! Assume that'll move north toward Dallas..

[Portastorm]

NWS Austin/San Antonio apparently missed a new record low maximum of 26 degrees at Mabry on February 2. I could not find an announcement of this event. The all-time lowest maximum temperature at Mabry/Mueller Airport is 20. When was the last time that Mabry failed to reach 30 for a high?

austinrunner, I posted about this last night. Yesterday Mabry had the coldest max temp since February 1989.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

Wow, moisture is picking up. Lets see how this plays out

Is this hitting the ground in Lufkin or beaumont?

[txagwxman]

Beaumont may get more than I thought.

[srainhoutx]

email from Jeff Thursday morning:

***Winter Storm Warning issued for all of SE TX, coastal bend, S TX, and SW LA***


Historic winter storm event within 8-12 hours of starting.


Do not think we will get the entire evening rush hour in before the event starts.



I will begin hourly updates starting at 100pm this afternoon.



Discussion:

Powerful upper level low continues to dig into northern Mexico this morning with increasing moisture clearly noted on radar and satellite images. Starting to get a few returns on the radar images this morning, but very dry sub-cloud layer is evaporating prior to the precip. reaching the ground..this process will continue for the morning before the low levels saturate and then the main show begins. Looks at the forecast soundings this morning, still believe the best course of action is to go with more sleet and snow than ice and will go ahead and bump snowfall totals up a tad across the entire area to fit with more snow than sleet/freezing rain.



Timing:

Starting to see some light sleet over Galveston Island in the last hour and echoes on the radar are increasing along the US 59 corridor and down around Corpus Christi. So far only GLS has reported anything reaching the ground as that low level air mass is very dry. Expect to see the radar echoes intensify this morning and saturate the low levels first on the coast and then spreading inland. It is very hard to determine how long it will take to bring the low levels to saturation, but once that point is reached precip. will reach the ground. Will go with onset of precip. reaching the ground 1-2pm along the coast and 300-400pm along US 59 including metro Houston and then all regions by 600pm. Road conditions will deteriorate very quickly once precip onsets with road temperatures at or below freezing both on bridges/overpasses and on surface streets.



Accumulations:

Will hit the entire area with 1-3 inches this includes the coastal bend, all of SE TX and into SW LA. Feel along and about 40-50 miles NW of US 59 is where the greatest totals will be with isolated amounts upwards of 4-5 inches possible. The only location where some freezing rain may fall is right along the coast from Freeport to Galveston Island and then inland toward southern Liberty County…will go with ice accumulations of .1-.25 of an inch in this region and then an inch of snow on top of the ice. Models continue to advertise convective nature to the event supporting the threat of meso bands with heavy snow. SPC has in fact placed a large part of the area under a thunderstorm risk for tonight supporting the threat for some convective events within the overall snow shield.



It is likely that everyone will see some accumulation, but where the biggest totals will be is nearly impossible to predict under the event is underway.



Temperatures:

Expect temperatures to hover at or below freezing all day and then in the mid to upper 20’s tonight and below freezing all day on Friday. May see a few locations rise to near 32-35 for an hour Friday afternoon if skies clear, but a rapid fall Friday night under clearings skies and light winds…with snow cover will result in lows back into the low 20’s for nearly all areas.



Travel:

Extremely dangerous travel conditions will be developing across the entire region and by early evening surface travel will be difficult. Travel on Friday will be nearly impossible and all residents are being urged to drive only if it is an emergency. Do not expect roads to recover until maybe sometime on Saturday afternoon. Ground crews will attempt to keep sanding operations ongoing, but given the size of this event will quickly be overwhelmed



Aviation:

It is going to get bad at the airports and suspect ground operations will not be able to keep the airports open. Continental has already cancelled all operations starting at 300pm today until noon Friday. Aircraft that depart will require extensive de-icing operations and snow removal operations for runways. Suspect at some point likely tonight that these operations will be suspended due to the storm intensity.



Power:

ERCOT has ordered another round of rotating blackouts from 600-800am this morning to conserve power on the TX grid. With more of a threat of snow/sleet feel that most power infrastructure will be OK during this event, except near the coast and Galveston bay where freezing rain may be possible with some ice accumulations.

[txagwxman]

GEM still +.30" of precip.

UKMET .25"

[austinrunner]

I'm familiar with standard deviations being expressed in numbers like 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. But I don't understand the 500 mb standard deviation forecast maps here:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images ... times.html
The scale ranges from 0 to 200, with no negative numbers. Can someone explain this in a layperson's terms?

[austinrunner]

NWS Austin/San Antonio apparently missed a new record low maximum of 26 degrees at Mabry on February 2. I could not find an announcement of this event. The all-time lowest maximum temperature at Mabry/Mueller Airport is 20. When was the last time that Mabry failed to reach 30 for a high?

austinrunner, I posted about this last night. Yesterday Mabry had the coldest max temp since February 1989.

Thanks! I missed your post. Was there an official NWS announcement that I also missed?

[PineyWoods]

We have been getting sleet pellets here in Tyler for about 15". Nothing major, but starting the precip earlier than I thought. Sitting at 20° currently

[Texas Snowman]

email from Jeff Thursday morning:

Historic winter storm event within 8-12 hours of starting.

This whole "La Nina" winter seems historic in many ways.

A frigid January in the Lone Star State and good North Texas snow event.

A Super Bowl XLV special that includes a sleet/snow/freezing rain storm and a severe Arctic air mass for Jerry's big party at the Death Star.

Now a south Texas snow event waiting in the wings and maybe even more snow and cold in Texas early next week.

And it's not just us - multiple power-house snow events in New England and the Mid-Atlantic; a huge blizzard this week in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois; and snow in the south a couple of times already.

20 years from now, we'll talk about the winters of 2009/10 and 2010/11 in the same hushed tones that we currently talk about the winters of 1976 and 1977, the Dec. 1983 freeze, the 1989 freeze, and the 1996 freeze.

The "La Nada" winter that keeps on giving...

[southerngale]

srainhoutx posted this in the SE TX thread. Thundersnow or thundersleet possible? Down here? Unreal, IF it were to occur.

And there have been many reports already this morning of light sleet and/or snow. I haven't seen anything yet.

This could be a very interesting 24 hours...



DAY 1 CONVECTIVE OUTLOOK
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0614 AM CST THU FEB 03 2011

VALID 031300Z - 041200Z

...NO SVR TSTM AREAS FORECAST...

AN EXPANSIVE UPPER TROUGH IS IN PLACE THIS MORNING OVER THE
CONTIGUOUS UNITED STATES...WITH COLD AND RELATIVELY DRY CONDITIONS
EVERYWHERE BUT FL. A SURFACE COLD FRONT CONTINUES TO SAG SLOWLY
SOUTHWARD ACROSS THE NORTHERN FL PENINSULA...AND IS PROVIDING A
FOCUS FOR SCATTERED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS. MODELS SUGGEST THIS
THREAT WILL PERSIST THROUGH THE MORNING HOURS BEFORE SLOWLY
DIMINISHING THIS AFTERNOON.

FARTHER WEST...INCREASING LARGE SCALE FORCING AND LOW LEVEL WARM
ADVECTION WILL RESULT IN AN EXPANDING AREA OF PRECIPITATION THIS
AFTERNOON THROUGH TONIGHT OVER THE GULF COAST STATES. MODEL
GUIDANCE SUGGESTS VERY WEAK ELEVATED INSTABILITY /CENTERED AROUND
600MB/ WILL DEVELOP OVER SOUTHEAST TX/SOUTHWEST LA. THIS AREA MAY
SEE A FEW LIGHTNING STRIKES IN THE MOST ORGANIZED SHOWERS TONIGHT.

..HART/GRAMS.. 02/03/2011

[serenata09]

Radar returns seem to be lighting up over the coastal bend from Beaumont down to Corpus! I hope you all get some winter precip. excitement!

[northtxboy]

email from Jeff Thursday morning:

Historic winter storm event within 8-12 hours of starting.

This whole "La Nina" winter seems historic in many ways.

A frigid January in the Lone Star State and good North Texas snow event.

A Super Bowl XLV special that includes a sleet/snow/freezing rain storm and a severe Arctic air mass for Jerry's big party at the Death Star.

Now a south Texas snow event waiting in the wings and maybe even more snow and cold in Texas early next week.

And it's not just us - multiple power-house snow events in New England and the Mid-Atlantic; a huge blizzard this week in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois; and snow in the south a couple of times already.

20 years from now, we'll talk about the winters of 2009/10 and 2010/11 in the same hushed tones that we currently talk about the winters of 1976 and 1977, the Dec. 1983 freeze, the 1989 freeze, and the 1996 freeze.

The "La Nada" winter that keeps on giving...

Didnt you hear!!!! Its globel warming!!! the earth is getting hotter so it gets colder!? I guess

[snow4444]

A decnt looking snow band just to the west of DFW wee should see what happens with shortly.