Texas Winter 2013-2014

[wxman57]

Time to crank up the Texas thermostat, Ntxw! You cannot win. I have successfully cut off the supply of fresh Arctic air. Time to head out for a 5-hr bike ride in the bright sunshine, something we probably won't see much of for the next week.

[TheProfessor]

So if an El Nino forms in late spring, could it last through next winter giving Texas a colder snowy winter?

[Ntxw]

So if an El Nino forms in late spring, could it last through next winter giving Texas a colder snowy winter?

It depends on strength of the Nino. Nearly all of them promises wet and below normal winters. Central Pacific Nino's are often snowier than east Pacific Nino's. DFW's two 1ft snowstorms both came with moderate cpac ninos.

[Rgv20]

Your jealous of this forecast wxman57 ??



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[wxman57]

So if an El Nino forms in late spring, could it last through next winter giving Texas a colder snowy winter?

El Nino winters in Texas are usually colder and wetter than normal due to a split flow pattern - one southern jet and one northern jet. 1983 was an El Nino winter, though I don't want to think about such horrors.

[ravyrn]

I managed this electric bill in the heat of winter. I wore a lot of warm clothes inside:

Thank you for using TXU Energy MyAccount. Your electricity bill is ready for review*.
Payment Amount Due: $37.52
Payment Due Date: 03/03/2014

[Texas Snowman]

Ntxw, if Heat Miser doesn't behave, I suggest sending him to Alaska for a bike riding vacation!

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"@BigJoeBastardi: as per @RyanMaue note: Alaskan wind chill near all time record of -96 Howards pass hit -92. So much for Baked Alaska."

[TheProfessor]

So if an El Nino forms in late spring, could it last through next winter giving Texas a colder snowy winter?

It depends on strength of the Nino. Nearly all of them promises wet and below normal winters. Central Pacific Nino's are often snowier than east Pacific Nino's. DFW's two 1ft snowstorms both came with moderate cpac ninos.

So is this one trying to form in the central or eastern pacific?

[wxman57]

Ntxw, if Heat Miser doesn't behave, I suggest sending him to Alaska for a bike riding vacation!

-----

"@BigJoeBastardi: as per @RyanMaue note: Alaskan wind chill near all time record of -96 Howards pass hit -92. So much for Baked Alaska."

We have an office in Alaska, and one in Moscow starting in April. I think I'd prefer our Rio office, though. Just returned from a long bike ride. Left at 11:15am, returned 5:15pm. It was pretty cold. Would much rather ride in 95 degree weather than 65. The 18Z GFS doesn't indicate any temps near freezing in Houston or Dallas through the first week of March. When Alaska is cold, we're not.

[JDawg512]

While I'm sure the angle of the sun plays a role although they do not sprout at the same time each year which tends to suggest that it is not a major factor. I started monitoring their growth patterns about 6 years ago and each year, they begin to grow after the last of the coldest temperatures pass, typically within a couple of days. I've seen them start growing as early as late January (as was the case last year) to as late as early March. And always once they sprout the overall pattern begins to shift. Again like I mentioned before it doesn't mean no more freezes, they don't mind light freezes down to about 30 degrees but what I find interesting is they grow as soon as the harder freezes go by.

The coldest month last year relative to average and freezes actually occured in March with the severe blocking, shouldn't they have waited? Maybe a certain temperature triggers them such as 80s which did occur in late January as well as this coming false spring? I will take your word for it though since I'm not much of a plants person, just numbers . It will be a good tool to measure by the coming weeks.

Last winter was unusual warm overall. Now of course every location has its own micro weather conditions. I live inside of Austin roughly 3.8 to 4 miles from Downtown. My neighborhood sits on a plateu which is I believe is 350 to 400 feet in elevation higher than Downtown. With that said, I don't think we got below freezing at all last winter at least here in my general neighborhood. If we did at all, it was just light frost. March was chilly but again, didn't have any freezes in my immediate local area. The plants began to sprout in late Jan and by the Spring Equinox, they fully grown. I can't remember how many freezes Austin had at the official recording stations, but we did not see any in the neighborhood. Even had tropical plants that normally die back to the ground during winter continue to grow as usual through last winter which was really nice because we had huge beautiful flowering tropics all last year and now they are all dead. I'm wondering if some of them will even grow back up from the ground at all.


It's true that more cold fronts will be on the way but I am confident that the coldest and I mean the very coldest it will get in my back yard for the rest of Winter is maybe 30 degrees, no colder.

[dhweather]

So I went to the basic and advanced skywarn training in Garland today, got to meet three of the FWD mets, really nice people. I've been to skywarn training five times in 20 years, and theirs was BY FAR the best.


The advanced session had some really neat info on the El Reno OK tornado. They showed radar images from 88D, TWDR and a rapid OU portable radar. Only the rapid cycle OU portable radar picked up multiple vortices rotating around the main 2.6 mile wide one.

[Ntxw]

Any chances of a warm, late winter or mild spring is quickly going down the drain (above average). There is very little model support for any kind of sustained warmth aside from the current false spring. ENSO continues to evolve quickly and there is a chance we may be looking at a moderate or strong Nino to kick up in the coming months. Analogs still shut the doors for a 2011 or 2012 March repeat. Plant at your own risk as the EPO has already or nearing it's peak positive and will head down once again. Perhaps the split flow shown in the pattern late in the game is a harbinger of things to come later this year.

I think they stole my term! Tsk tsk HPC/WPC

***

EXTENDED FORECAST DISCUSSION
NWS WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER COLLEGE PARK MD
1253 AM EST SAT FEB 15 2014

VALID 12Z TUE FEB 18 2014 - 12Z SAT FEB 22 2014


...SPRING-LIKE WARMING IN STORE FOR MUCH OF THE UNITED STATES...

THE CURRENT WINTRY PATTERN IN THE EAST IS ABOUT TO LIFT AS STRONG
ZONAL FLOW ESTABLISHES ITSELF ACROSS THE NATION. ONE PARTING ROUND
OF FROZEN PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTED TO AFFECT PORTIONS OF THE MID
ATLANTIC AND NORTHEAST DAY 3 WITH THE ADVENT OF A WAVE CROSSING
THE GREAT LAKES. THEREAFTER, EXPECT A MARKED REBOUND IN HEIGHTS
EAST OF THE ROCKIES, WITH A DEEP CYCLONE PULLING NORTH OF THE
GREAT LAKES MID PERIOD. USED AN EVEN BLEND OF THE 12Z/14 ECMWF AND
ECENS MEAN FOR THIS PACKAGE--THE HEAVY INCORPORATION OF THE
DETERMINISTIC ECMWF TO GIVE THE SYSTEM PULLING INTO SOUTHEASTERN
CANADA AFTER DAY 5 SOME REALISTIC GRADIENT. THE EUROPEAN CENTRE
GUIDANCE TELLS THE TALE THE BEST, AND HAS SHOWN THE MOST
CONSISTENT SIGNAL OF THE GLOBAL MODELS AS A WHOLE OVER THE PAST
THREE DATA CYCLES.

WITH THE DOOR OPEN TO TRUE SUBTROPICAL AIR OVER MUCH OF THE SOUTH
AND EAST THIS PERIOD, EXPECT TEMPERATURES AND DEW POINTS TO GO WAY
ABOVE NORMAL. ANOMALIES OF 20 TO 30+ FAHRENHEIT SHOULD SPREAD FROM
EASTERN TEXAS, ACROSS THE GULF STATES, THEN UP THE APPALACHIANS
AND ATLANTIC COAST STATES BY THE END OF THE PERIOD. THE WARM AIR
SHOULD PROVE QUITE THE SHARP CONTRAST TO THE ICE, SNOW, AND COLD
OF LATE. AS THE FLOW BEGINS TO BUCKLE UPSTREAM DAY 6, A NEW
CYCLONE WILL TAP THE WARM, JUICY AIR OFF THE GULF OF MEXICO, WITH
SOAKING CONVECTION BLOOMING AHEAD OF THE COLD FRONT FROM NORTHERN
LOUISIANA TO EASTERN TENNESSEE. SNOW IS EXPECTED IN ON THE COLD
SIDE OF THE PRIMARY SURFACE LOW LIFTING THROUGH THE UPPER MIDWEST.

THE ONSLAUGHT OF PACIFIC MOISTURE INTO THE NORTHWEST CONTINUES
THROUGH AT LEAST DAY 6, WITH MORE LOW-ELEVATION RAINS AND HIGH
COUNTRY SNOWS. THE AFOREMENTIONED AMPLIFICATION--IN THIS CASE A
FULL-LATITUDE RIDGE--SHOULD DO TWO BIG THINGS: FIRST, IT WILL SHUT
OFF THE FIREHOSE INTO THE NORTHWEST. SECOND, IT SHOULD ACT IN
TANDEM WITH A ROTATION OF THE CROSS-POLAR VORTEX TO BEGIN TO
DELIVER ARCTIC AIR INTO THE NORTH CENTRAL STATES. THE LONG-RANGE
MODELS HAVE BEEN SHOWING THIS REAMPLIFICATION FOR A WHILE NOW,
MARKING THE WARM-UP FOR MUCH OF THE NATION AS A "FALSE SPRING."


CISCO

[JDawg512]

Been following the news about the Volcano Eruption in Indonesia. With the major eruption that just occurred a few hours ago, this makes two volcanos currently erupting there.

Would like to hear some thoughts on whether climate effects if any at all could we experience in this part of the world?

[TexasF6]

JDawg: great article here. It's the sulfuric dioxide that causes cooling....

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php

[Tireman4]

Memo to Wxman 57:

SECOND, IT SHOULD ACT IN
TANDEM WITH A ROTATION OF THE CROSS-POLAR VORTEX TO BEGIN TO
DELIVER ARCTIC AIR INTO THE NORTH CENTRAL STATES. THE LONG-RANGE
MODELS HAVE BEEN SHOWING THIS REAMPLIFICATION FOR A WHILE NOW,
MARKING THE WARM-UP FOR MUCH OF THE NATION AS A "FALSE SPRING."

Thank you for playing sir. Pick your parting gifts at the door. Woo Hoo....

[Portastorm]

More this morning from the NWS Weather Prediction desk ... the Arctic air will return to the CONUS but the question is ... how far south will it make it? We all need to remember that earlier this winter the pattern looked "great" but we had a progressive pattern flow so the bulk of the Arctic air stayed to our north and east. Admittedly the deterministic Euro runs for the last few days have shown a more progressive type pattern flow.


EXTENDED FORECAST DISCUSSION
NWS WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER COLLEGE PARK MD
1132 PM EST SAT FEB 15 2014

VALID 12Z WED FEB 19 2014 - 12Z SUN FEB 23 2014


THE FLOW ACROSS CENTRAL NORTH AMERICA WILL GO FROM ZONAL TO
HIGH-AMPLITUDE MERIDIONAL AT THE MEDIUM RANGE. USED THE 12Z/16
EUROPEAN CENTRE ENSEMBLE MEAN AS A SYNOPTIC GUIDE THIS FORECAST,
SINCE TRANSITIONAL PATTERNS USUALLY LEAD THE DETERMINISTIC
SOLUTIONS A MERRY CHASE. THE ECENS MEAN HAS ONLY TRENDED MODESTLY
OVER THE PAST FEW DATA CYCLES, AND HAS A MUCH MORE ROBUST POSITIVE
CORRELATION WITH THE CMCE MEAN THAN THE GEFS MEAN.

BEFORE THE BIG BUCKLING, THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST WILL CONTINUE TO
PILE UP ONSHORE-FLOW PRECIPITATION, WITH ENOUGH ZONAL COMPONENT TO
SPREAD SNOWS ALL THE WAY INLAND TO THE CENTRAL ROCKIES. OVER THE
EAST, THE COLD AIR AT THE SURFACE WILL BE MORE STUBBORN TO LIFT
BODILY NORTHWARD, WITH SPRING-LIKE WARMTH A SURE BET SOUTH OF THE
POLAR FRONT FROM EAST TEXAS TO THE MID ATLANTIC.

THE AMPLIFICATION IS PROGGED TO BEGIN WITH HEIGHT RISES OVER THE
UPPER ALEUTIANS, EVENTUALLY FORGING A FULL-LATITUDE RIDGE ALONG
THE WESTERN SPINE OF NORTH AMERICA RIGHT UP INTO THE YUKON. THIS
FLOW SHOULD CUT OFF THE SOAKING PLUME INTO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST,
BUT INITIATE A NEW JUICY JET INTO THE NORTHERN GULF STATES AS THE
LONGWAVE TROUGH BEGINS TO CARVE. THE COLD AIR AT THE SURFACE WILL
MAKE ITSELF FELT OVER THE NORTHERN PLAINS FIRST, WITH A SLOW
PROGRESSION EASTWARD FOR THE TIME BEING.


CISCO

[Portastorm]

Been following the news about the Volcano Eruption in Indonesia. With the major eruption that just occurred a few hours ago, this makes two volcanos currently erupting there.

Would like to hear some thoughts on whether climate effects if any at all could we experience in this part of the world?

Here's another good read which may answer your question:

http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/how-do-volcanoes-affect-atmosphere-and-climate

[TheProfessor]

I love the weather right now! nice and cool and cloudy.

[Ntxw]

Such a complicated thing with volcanoes! Personally from all the readings I've done on them it takes a very big eruption (VEI 6-8) like Pinatubo or Katmai to significantly alter the climate enough to where it is noticeable and can be tracked. More subtle changes like increased blocking or less/more rainfall for a region is more likely with lesser eruptions.

What is more intriguing is that Indonesia is a major player of the MJO where these eruptions occurred. Will less solar radiation in that region due to aerosols prevent convection and in turn shift the convection to the Pacific? Or maybe it's the natural cycle and the earth is responding to a possible Nino? Conspiracies!

[TheProfessor]

Well if the volcanoes do change the weather pattern, hopefully it helps us and doesn't hurt us. I don't want another summer of 2011 or winter of 2011-12!