Texas Winter 2024-2025

[Cpv17]

The ensembles have ridging building over the southern half of the country when the EPO goes negative. I’m not sure we’ll be able to get that cold air down here. Might stay locked up north.

[Stratton23]

Lots of time for that to change , the EPS has been trending weaker with the se ridge over time on the last few runs, if you can get an arctic cold airmass to enter the west central us and start diving south , it will almost always overwhelm any se ridging in place

[Cpv17]

Lots of time for that to change , the EPS has been trending weaker with the se ridge over time on the last few runs, if you can get an arctic cold airmass to enter the west central us and start diving south , it will almost always overwhelm any se ridging in place

Yeah, that’s the hope anyway.

[Stratton23]

Cpv17 its gonna depend on how strong that ridge is, the stronger it is, it will definitely resist more and that cold air would likely stay in the western US , but if you get any sort of storm system that moves in and weakens or flattens the se ridge, its game on for the cold air to plunge straight south, EPS has been hinting at that being a possibility

[cheezyWXguy]

Liking that 6z gfs at hour 204. That cold core ULL setup has been persistent to varying degrees through the last few runs.

[TropicalTundra]

Liking that 6z gfs at hour 204. That cold core ULL setup has been persistent to varying degrees through the last few runs.

Very interesting the GFS is consistent like that before the Canadian even sees it. It has the moisture though, just no cold

[Cpv17]

Cpv17 its gonna depend on how strong that ridge is, the stronger it is, it will definitely resist more and that cold air would likely stay in the western US , but if you get any sort of storm system that moves in and weakens or flattens the se ridge, its game on for the cold air to plunge straight south, EPS has been hinting at that being a possibility

If the AO could cooperate that would definitely help.

[weatherdude1108]

So happy for my friends up in the Austin region as well as our folks across Houston metro points east into Louisiana who have been patiently waiting for their turn for quite some time. Enjoy the snow folks (blizzard warning into Louisiana crazy). Nice surprise snow here in SA as well.

Another hat tip to our local NWS offices who nailed this forecast again in addition to our own forum mets who never wavered up against the HRRR which damaged its cred a bit (at least with winter weather). Globals were probably a little overdone further north but WRF members at least had the right idea.

Some of the models already hinting at more cold down the road so perhaps we're not done just yet?

We sure the HRRR did poorly ?? It appears from Austin to San Antonio to Houston looks like HRRR did fairly well...official numbers are San Antonio (KSAT) 0.02 qpf. Austin (KAUS) 0.05 qpf, Houston (KIAH) 0.17 qpf. Seemed to also do well with the heavy band thru Beaumont. There maybe some localized areas that skew the output but overall, it doesn't look like a terrible forecast from 12-18 hours out. Important to document/archive this correctly for future analog purposes. Here is the Hi Res model qpf output from Yesterday Morning Monday 1/21/25 at 12Z

HRRR
https://imgur.com/mXZlWi6

RAP
https://imgur.com/vtUod9u

NAM
https://imgur.com/Rq0ngh8

WRF-HRW
https://imgur.com/7AJdimD

HRW-FV3
https://imgur.com/hVWNBBW

Actually, yes. I am sure the HRRR did poorly. Considering for most of yesterday it showed zero qpf over Travis County and we ended up with about 1/2" of snow and ice, I'd say that was a bust. It was a bit too aggressive with pushing the moisture to the coast. I think the NAM actually did the best for my area.

I realized I forgot to post on here about the snow. We got the line just below the 0.5" mark on the ruler (whatever that is). Almost a half-inch of graupel/sleet/snow! The CoCoRaHS capture 0.33" of the graupel, and when I let that melt inside for a bit, it was 0.11" liquid. Not sure how to post pics here, but it was fun! Still have snow/ice on our roof two days later!

[txtwister78]

Mentioned this the other day about Jan being a bust for temps. This was shared by Joe Bastardi this morning on X/twitter but look at that bust for January temps. CSV2 wasn't the only model showing a warm Jan either. Euro forecast in December for January looked similar across the south as well.

[wxman22]

The late next week storm system ejection is starting to look interesting with the CMC showing a potent winterstorm.The GFS is hinting at a winterstorm as well.

[Cpv17]

The late next week storm system ejection is starting to look interesting with the CMC showing a potent winterstorm.The GFS is hinting at a winterstorm as well.

https://i.ibb.co/yd2FcLJ/IMG-0194.png

https://i.ibb.co/fNhZczN/IMG-0195.png

Another coastal low? Man, this pattern is great for precip.

[txtwister78]

That system late next week would be more interesting if it had some cold air to work with further north to pull down. Too warm right now around it via the models for any credible winter storm threat in my opinion. Perhaps something for higher elevation areas out in west TX but absent some cold air, looks more like a rainmaker than a snow threat for most right now.

[Stratton23]

Hopefully we start seeing some drying trends please!

[TomballEd]

My area (1960 and TC Jester) only got 2 inches of snow but uncovering the smaller palm trees there were still small areas of crusty snow along the fence where it was shielded from the sun.

[Lagreeneyes03]

Mentioned this the other day about Jan being a bust for temps. This was shared by Joe Bastardi this morning on X/twitter but look at that bust for January temps. CSV2 wasn't the only model showing a warm Jan either. Euro forecast in December for January looked similar across the south as well.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gh_J7PxXMAAJOND?format=png&name=900x900

https://images.weatherbell.com/model/ecmwf-seasonal-monthly_avgs-avg/conus/t2m_c_anom_month_mostrecent/1733011200/1735689600-8iR9ZPWD1Ws.png

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gh_J8cgWEAA_-47?format=png&name=medium

I noticed all week our high temps in NTX have come down. on Sunday, yesterday's forecast was upper 50's and the rest of the week 60's. Yesterday ended up being just hitting 50, and rest of the week now 50's. Today's high is forecast 50.

[rwfromkansas]

Pretty quiet here now. Looks rainy next week, blah.

Hopefully things trend colder with some snow for N/C TX.

But, this may be it.

[Stratton23]

Na we will have a couple of chances in february, after seeing how badly the CFS monthly and EPS monthly guidance did with calling for a warm January which ended up busting, im hesitant to believe the same models calling for a very mild february, yeah you gotta factor in climatology and the se ridge, but i definitely think it would be foolish to think winter is over for Texas just yet , lot of cold air building in western and central canada on the ensembles, se ridge is their, but still have to watch this of course, wouldn’t take much for the dam to burst

[orangeblood]

Mentioned this the other day about Jan being a bust for temps. This was shared by Joe Bastardi this morning on X/twitter but look at that bust for January temps. CSV2 wasn't the only model showing a warm Jan either. Euro forecast in December for January looked similar across the south as well.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gh_J7PxXMAAJOND?format=png&name=900x900

https://images.weatherbell.com/model/ecmwf-seasonal-monthly_avgs-avg/conus/t2m_c_anom_month_mostrecent/1733011200/1735689600-8iR9ZPWD1Ws.png

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gh_J8cgWEAA_-47?format=png&name=medium

One of the more humbling professions we have is long range weather forecasting...some of the most "sophisticated", expensive, energy consuming tools we have don't perform well at all outside of 7-10 days. And it's been that way for forever without a lot of progress it appears (talking outside of the 2 week time frame). Not even mentioning the 24-48 hrs out non sense that we see from the models occasionally

[orangeblood]

Na we will have a couple of chances in february, after seeing how badly the CFS monthly and EPS monthly guidance did with calling for a warm January which ended up busting, im hesitant to believe the same models calling for a very mild february, yeah you gotta factor in climatology and the se ridge, but i definitely think it would be foolish to think winter is over for Texas just yet , lot of cold air building in western and central canada on the ensembles, se ridge is their, but still have to watch this of course, wouldn’t take much for the dam to burst

Lots of Ensemble noise end of week 2, Feb 7-10th time period. Coincidentally has been peak winter weather season for Texas over the past two decades

[Brent]

I dunno about Texas but I know for a fact we'll have something else here. It's too early

And yeah everyone thought January was gonna be warm too