Texas Winter 2021-2022

[Brent]

Lol the GFS has a big wall of snow just vanish as it nears me next Saturday all the precip even the rain just disappears

[Ntxw]

We're in the medium range now. Sprawling Arctic HP is coming down and there's some of kind of a winter storm threat coming to the southern plains within 5-7 days.

[Haris]

1/2” - 1” mean on GFS ensembles. Chances continue to increase!

[Cpv17]

0z Euro continues the positive trend!

[Cpv17]

The GFS has officially lost its mind. All I gotta say.

[Ntxw]

The GFS has officially lost its mind. All I gotta say.

Pacific mjo hugging p8. Moves slow, wouldn't discount it completely. Was a foe before with slow move, but now opposite result.

[Ralph's Weather]

6Z GFS still has the weekend storm. All models have the big trough and the cmc even has the SW lobe over NM. The GFS holds the Great Lakes temporary ridge just long enough for the storm to amplify over Texas though. If that happens we could see a widespread 6" show event, but it could very easily morph into a quick hitter that may not drop any show if the GL ridge shifts east too quickly.
The late week system bears watching also but models are not showing a winter storm with that one at this time. Overall we are in a very active pattern with winter weather possible once or twice a week for several weeks ahead.

[WinterMax]

Wonder where the GFS is finding all of that moisture, they are far and away the outlier. They should begin to cave toward the European and Canadian.

[wxman57]

Wonder where the GFS is finding all of that moisture, they are far and away the outlier. They should begin to cave toward the European and Canadian.

The moisture comes from the West Gulf Low it develops. In 1898, Rayne, LA (just west of Lafayette) recorded 24" of snow in a 24-hr period, probably with a WGL to the south. Note that the EC only has a little snow in West TX and some patches in the Hill Country next weekend.

[txtwister78]

6Z GFS still has the weekend storm. All models have the big trough and the cmc even has the SW lobe over NM. The GFS holds the Great Lakes temporary ridge just long enough for the storm to amplify over Texas though. If that happens we could see a widespread 6" show event, but it could very easily morph into a quick hitter that may not drop any show if the GL ridge shifts east too quickly.
The late week system bears watching also but models are not showing a winter storm with that one at this time. Overall we are in a very active pattern with winter weather possible once or twice a week for several weeks ahead.

I agree the system late next week (Thursday-Friday timeframe) bears watch simply because there has been slightly better ensemble support for it each run compared to the operational runs. The key however for me is how much pacific moisture do we tap into or is it just some minor disturbances embedded within the trough sliding down from the NW. In those cases, typically we don't see a ton of moisture to work with (better moisture odds further south & east into TX actually). You can still get a quick winter weather event out of it but definitely not "storm" criteria, however while not significant just yet, every run of the ensembles has trended with more precip across Central, South Central and East TX along with colder air so the bears watch to me is definitely on point.

Definitely an active pattern though no question with the "potential" to deliver.

[txtwister78]

Talk about a disconnect....

[weatherdude1108]

Looks like some possible Winter weather mischief in the next couple weeks(?).

[wxman57]

6Z GFS has Houston below freezing for 72 hrs from the 27th-30th. 00Z had no low below 35F during that period. I'd be very skeptical of any solution that far out.

Here's the 00Z GFS extended outlook:
http://wxman57.com/images/00ZGFS.JPG

Here's the 06Z GFS:
http://wxman57.com/images/06ZGFS.JPG

For those who can view my images:

Here's the 00Z GFS extended outlook:


Here's the 06Z GFS:

[orangeblood]

Talk about a disconnect....

https://images.weatherbell.com/model/gfs-deterministic/tx/t2m_f/1642312800/1642798800-Y1qeCMZnlKw.png

https://images.weatherbell.com/model/gfs-ensemble-all-avg/tx/t2m_f/1642312800/1642798800-aZjrRgwIJXA.png

This should be D day for model trends, we’re starting to get in the 5 day window time frame for convergence….biggest indicator IMO is the GFS is the only operational model that has decent support from its ensembles. The Euro and CMC do not

[wxman57]

Talk about a disconnect....

https://images.weatherbell.com/model/gfs-deterministic/tx/t2m_f/1642312800/1642798800-Y1qeCMZnlKw.png

https://images.weatherbell.com/model/gfs-ensemble-all-avg/tx/t2m_f/1642312800/1642798800-aZjrRgwIJXA.png

This should be D day for model trends, we’re starting to get in the 5 day window time frame for convergence….biggest indicator IMO is the GFS is the only operational model that has decent support from its ensembles. The Euro and CMC do not

"D-Day" may not arrive until around Thursday.

[wxman57]

The upper-level flow in the 6Z GFS run just doesn't look "right" for the cold it has at the surface near the end of the month. There is cross-Polar flow, but it's flowing from Canada INTO Siberia, not the other way around. Looks fishy, to me. I'd tend to believe the 00Z surface forecast vs. the extreme cold of the 06Z. Also, the GFS has the cold coming from Saskatchewan with above-normal temps in British Colombia & Alaska. Odd place for the origin of the cold air.

[Ntxw]

The upper-level flow in the 6Z GFS run just doesn't look "right" for the cold it has at the surface near the end of the month. There is cross-Polar flow, but it's flowing from Canada INTO Siberia, not the other way around. Looks fishy, to me. I'd tend to believe the 00Z surface forecast vs. the extreme cold of the 06Z. Also, the GFS has the cold coming from Saskatchewan with above-normal temps in British Colombia & Alaska. Odd place for the origin of the cold air.

Pretty wild ens and gfs saw this week's cold snap 300+ hours out.

Just a note to everyone if you can, even if crazy, post long range images of runs snow, ice, heat, 500mb. Any maps will help when looking back to compare what transpired vs what was shown. It will be helpful when we look for model tendencies.

Finding model archives of older runs beyond a certain period can be tough.

[NDG]

The upper-level flow in the 6Z GFS run just doesn't look "right" for the cold it has at the surface near the end of the month. There is cross-Polar flow, but it's flowing from Canada INTO Siberia, not the other way around. Looks fishy, to me. I'd tend to believe the 00Z surface forecast vs. the extreme cold of the 06Z. Also, the GFS has the cold coming from Saskatchewan with above-normal temps in British Colombia & Alaska. Odd place for the origin of the cold air.

Pretty wild ens and gfs saw this week's cold snap 300+ hours out.

Just a note to everyone if you can, even if crazy, post long range images of runs snow, ice, heat, 500mb. Any maps will help when looking back to compare what transpired vs what was shown. It will be helpful when we look for model tendencies.

Finding model archives of older runs beyond a certain period can be tough.

You can go back all the way to Feb 2019 for the GFS forecasts' archives on weather.us

[wxman57]

The upper-level flow in the 6Z GFS run just doesn't look "right" for the cold it has at the surface near the end of the month. There is cross-Polar flow, but it's flowing from Canada INTO Siberia, not the other way around. Looks fishy, to me. I'd tend to believe the 00Z surface forecast vs. the extreme cold of the 06Z. Also, the GFS has the cold coming from Saskatchewan with above-normal temps in British Colombia & Alaska. Odd place for the origin of the cold air.

Pretty wild ens and gfs saw this week's cold snap 300+ hours out.

Just a note to everyone if you can, even if crazy, post long range images of runs snow, ice, heat, 500mb. Any maps will help when looking back to compare what transpired vs what was shown. It will be helpful when we look for model tendencies.

Finding model archives of older runs beyond a certain period can be tough.

Every GFS run for the past 2 months has had a cold snap 300+ hours out. Not even a freeze here in Houston this weekend.

[Ralph's Weather]

The upper-level flow in the 6Z GFS run just doesn't look "right" for the cold it has at the surface near the end of the month. There is cross-Polar flow, but it's flowing from Canada INTO Siberia, not the other way around. Looks fishy, to me. I'd tend to believe the 00Z surface forecast vs. the extreme cold of the 06Z. Also, the GFS has the cold coming from Saskatchewan with above-normal temps in British Colombia & Alaska. Odd place for the origin of the cold air.

Pretty wild ens and gfs saw this week's cold snap 300+ hours out.

Just a note to everyone if you can, even if crazy, post long range images of runs snow, ice, heat, 500mb. Any maps will help when looking back to compare what transpired vs what was shown. It will be helpful when we look for model tendencies.

Finding model archives of older runs beyond a certain period can be tough.

When I find available time I may try to write a script to archive model data. Right now writing one to archive nws grid point forecasts. It's good practice but takes me a while as I have only been working in Python a few months.