2011 SE TX/SW LA Weather: Nice weather next several days

[jasons2k]

So the big question is...now what? Does the line offshore evolve into a coastal trough and cut us off from any more development? Does the area to our West and Northwest get enough heating to develop another round and send it this way? Even if that happened, would it even make it or would it fall apart when it reached the cold pool? Will the cold pool still even be around later tonight? Will we recover for another round tomorrow? Lots of options on the table right now.

[PTrackerLA]

Heavy rain again in Lafayette today with street flooding reported. More moving in now too. I'd estimate at least 1.5" so far today. Glad we're all seeing some much needed rain!

[vbhoutex]

So the big question is...now what? Does the line offshore evolve into a coastal trough and cut us off from any more development? Does the area to our West and Northwest get enough heating to develop another round and send it this way? Even if that happened, would it even make it or would it fall apart when it reached the cold pool? Will the cold pool still even be around later tonight? Will we recover for another round tomorrow? Lots of options on the table right now.

Can't you find something positive to post about this?? j/k I had 1.24" of rain today.
In answer to your questions, I don't know, but my guess is the trough will be the answer unfortunately. I hope that is not the case. Another day of rain would surely be welcome.

[jasons2k]

Can't you find something positive to post about this?? j/k I had 1.24" of rain today.
In answer to your questions, I don't know, but my guess is the trough will be the answer unfortunately. I hope that is not the case. Another day of rain would surely be welcome.

Hey, I was happy with my 1.55"
Especially after seeing the airport totals, etc.

Call me an optimist, but the clouds are really building here now. I hope we can squeeze out another round this afternoon.

[PTrackerLA]

Looks like the high clouds and sprinkles today have killed any significant precip chances, it's just too stable. A return to hot and dry conditions appear imminent and with next weeks possible tropical system in the gulf being shunted even further south by models it may be a while until we see decent chances of rain again. I'm just thankful my area picked up 3"-4" over the past two days which has provided some nice short term relief from this exceptional drought.

[jasons2k]

Yeah, it's raining big drops here now

[vbhoutex]

Today's email from Jeff. Not good news for Texas.

Numerous showers ongoing this morning off the TX coast moving northward. However moisture is decreasing across the area from north to south with PWS values down to around 1.5 inches along I-10 and 1.3 inches along Hwy 105. Expect Gulf showers to be able to make it inland to around I-10 this morning especially over our southwest zones around Matagorda Bay.

Upper ridge will quickly expand over the region this afternoon through the weekend with warming of the air column and drying of the moisture. Combination of ridging aloft and drying surface layer will boost temperatures back into the upper 90’s over the weekend. Ridge remains anchored over N TX/S OK into the middle of next week keeping the area hot and dry.

Tropics:

A tropical wave is moving through the central Caribbean Sea this morning and this feature will reach the western Caribbean Sea over the weekend and into the southern Gulf of Mexico early next week. Forecast models including the GFS, CMC, NOGAPS, and ECMWF all show this wave developing a closed surface reflection over the southern Gulf of Mexico or Bay of Campeche early next week. The NOGAPS is the most southern depiction of this system followed by the ECMWF and the CMC showing developments deep in the southern Gulf with strong ridging over TX while the GFS is strongest and furthest north with the system showing a roughly 1000mb system heading or northern MX or S TX. General consensus is a weaker and southern suppressed system falling in line with the ECMWF and CMC. Will discount the GFS as too strong and too far north given the projected ridging forecasted over TX.



For now will limit impacts to the southern TX coast line after Tuesday of next week with mainly just an increase in moisture and wave action. Should the models trend toward the GFS solution significant forecast changes would be required along the entire TX coast with a significant increase in rain chances and seas/tides.

Fire Weather:

Ongoing wildfires over the area are nearly contained this morning due to widespread rainfall on Wednesday. Surface fuels that have been wetted by the recent rainfall will gradually begin to dry out again as after temperatures climb into the upper 90’s and afternoon RH falls to below 50%. Last chance of showers today for the next 4-5 days. Winds will also be increasing again due to lower pressures in the Great Plains. Not expecting significant fire weather concerns and conditions are not near as critical as last week, but elevated fire weather will return to much of the area by early next week as the rainfall on Wednesday transitions to a memory and ground fuels dry under increasingly gusty winds. Burn bans and now fireworks bans are in effect for most all of our counties.

Drought:

For the state of Texas as a whole the 2010-2011 drought is now being classified as the 3rd worst drought in recorded history only behind the droughts of 1918 and 1956. If rainfall does not increase in the next few months this drought will likely become the worst on record for the state.

While rainfall this week has helped the surface layer, it is still incredibly dry over the state and area. Rainfall departures since October 2010 still are averaging 19-24 inches across the area.

Lake Travis on the Colorado River NW of Austin is now 34 feet below its conservation pool level. Early this week the inflow into the entire Highland Lakes chain on the Colorado River was an amazing 13cfs. On average Lake Travis is falling about 1 foot per week due to evaporation and water withdraws being required by downstream locations. Currently the combined storage for all the Highland Lakes is around 1.2 million acre feet. Based on a continuation of the extreme drought conditions the combined storage for the system will fall to near 750,000 acre feet by the end of this year. Drought of record is 600,000 acre feet.


Most Consecutive Days with less than .50 of an inch of rainfall:

BUSH IAH

148 days ended on 6/21/2011 (new record)

93 days ended on 2/13/2099 (old record)

Most Consecutive Days with less than .25 of an inch of rainfall:

BUSH IAH

99 days ended on 6/21/2011 (new record)

71 days ended on 1/28/1959 (old record)

Hobby Airport

99 days ended on 6/21/2011 (new record)

84 days ended on 2/5/2971 (old record)

Galveston

108 days ended on 6/21/2011 (new record)

102 days ended on 6/20/2008 (old record)

Outlook:

Based on historical droughts in Texas this time of year only 1 out of 5 droughts were broken by August…80% of the years remained in drought or became even drier. Barring the landfall of a tropical system into the state, there is little that is going to help end the ongoing drought.

[SaskatchewanScreamer]

Am begging you to get rid of that cockroach ridge so you can have this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh2NRxmsHII&feature=related[/youtube]



Here, in the normally driest province of Canada, I'm positive it will be many a year before a farmer dares pray for rain again.

[vbhoutex]

As an absentee farm owner(we lease it out)I understand the pain. That would ruin any farm.
And we would love to get rid of this cockroach ridge as even with the recent rain we did have, our pictures would be the exact opposite of yours. We so need a balance between your weather and ours!!!

[Dave]

Checked some rainfall data tonight for my area. So far this year we've had 20.15" between January 1 & June 26. Normally for the YEAR we gt 14.50 inches. Had 0.75" this morning in an hour with another round of storms coming in tomorrow afternoon. This is where some of your rain is...my house & area.

[vbhoutex]

Checked some rainfall data tonight for my area. So far this year we've had 20.15" between January 1 & June 26. Normally for the YEAR we gt 14.50 inches. Had 0.75" this morning in an hour with another round of storms coming in tomorrow afternoon. This is where some of your rain is...my house & area.

Considering our normal for this point in the year is 23" and we are just over 7" you stand convicted rainfall theft!! And no, since you made a public confession, there will be no trial by jury.

[Ptarmigan]

As an absentee farm owner(we lease it out)I understand the pain. That would ruin any farm.
And we would love to get rid of this cockroach ridge as even with the recent rain we did have, our pictures would be the exact opposite of yours. We so need a balance between your weather and ours!!!

The RAID cans don't work on this Cockroach Ridge.

[SaskatchewanScreamer]

As an absentee farm owner(we lease it out)I understand the pain. That would ruin any farm.
And we would love to get rid of this cockroach ridge as even with the recent rain we did have, our pictures would be the exact opposite of yours. We so need a balance between your weather and ours!!!

The RAID cans don't work on this Cockroach Ridge.

(oooooops I can't afford to do that here since even that moisture will stick around forever and ever).

What is the difference between that #%$^@#$%$# ridge above you now and what was there in the Dirty Thirties (I'm sure you folks called them the Dust Bowl Years). If memory serves me correctly there was something above Texas then (only that time the rest of the North American Great Plains suffered the same fate you folks are this time 'round). What is it that is sitting over you now and what was sitting over Texas in the 1930's?

And Vbhoutx I sooooo agree with you!!! Texas's farm land is parched and Saskatchewan has 5 million acres of crop growing farm land unplanted and underwater.

[SaskatchewanScreamer]

I see it is a high pressure ridge (thanks to Portastorm's posting) that is currently over you folks and it seems to be doing a marvelous job of blocking the jet stream.

I'm also guessing La Nina has something (lots) to do with why we are getting soooooo much rain. So in the Dust Bowl years did areas of Texas get lots of rain? (about the opposite of what is happening now?).

[Tireman4]

I'm also guessing La Nina has something (lots) to do with why we are getting soooooo much rain. So in the Dust Bowl years did areas of Texas get lots of rain? (about the opposite of what is happening now?).[/quote]

In some parts, the rain was adequate. In other parts...(Panhandle and a little further south) nope. Why do I know this? Because, one it is actually in part of my dissertation. The weather had much to do with how folks in Texas dealt with the Depression. Second, a book I used for reference deals with it in detail. If you want a sobering account of just how bad it was, read Timothy Egan's book, The Worst Hard Time. Very sobering.

On April 14, 1935, the biggest dust storm on record descended over five states, from the Dakotas to Amarillo, Texas. People standing a few feet apart could not see each other; if they touched, they risked being knocked over by the static electricity that the dust created in the air. The Dust Bowl was the product of reckless, market-driven farming that had so abused the land that, when dry weather came, the wind lifted up millions of acres of topsoil and whipped it around in "black blizzards," which blew as far east as New York. This ecological disaster rapidly disfigured whole communities. Egan's portraits of the families who stayed behind are sobering and far less familiar than those of the "exodusters" who staggered out of the High Plains. He tells of towns depopulated to this day, a mother who watched her baby die of "dust pneumonia," and farmers who gathered tumbleweed as food for their cattle and, eventually, for their children. Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

http://www.amazon.com/Worst-Hard-Time-S ... 051&sr=1-1

[SaskatchewanScreamer]

Tireman my grandparents told many a story of those years (wet towels around the windows and doors to keep the dust out ......t'was said Saskatchewan's top soil came to rest on the Maritime provinces): http://wdm.ca/sk_challenge/Q7%20correct.htm

After hearing their stories and knowing what happened here and in the States any huge change in weather in the Great Plains concerns me.

[Tireman4]

Tireman my grandparents told many a story of those years (wet towels around the windows and doors to keep the dust out ......t'was said Saskatchewan's top soil came to rest on the Maritime provinces): http://wdm.ca/sk_challenge/Q7%20correct.htm

After hearing their stories and knowing what happened here and in the States any huge change in weather in the Great Plains concerns me.

Agreed Ms Screamer, but I think weather is cyclical....so who knows what will happen next year.....

[SaskatchewanScreamer]

p.s. I'll be looking for Timothy Egan's book, The Worst Hard Time at the library this afternoon. Thank you for that title. :o)

[SaskatchewanScreamer]

Tireman my grandparents told many a story of those years (wet towels around the windows and doors to keep the dust out ......t'was said Saskatchewan's top soil came to rest on the Maritime provinces): http://wdm.ca/sk_challenge/Q7%20correct.htm

After hearing their stories and knowing what happened here and in the States any huge change in weather in the Great Plains concerns me.

Hopefully La Nina disappears and normal (what ever that is) weather patterns return (El Nino would certainly dry us up but......).

[lebron23]

Should see a few sea breeze showers thanks to 95l.