Texas Spring 2013

[Portastorm]

This will be the thread to discuss Texas weather during the spring months of 2013. Talk amongst yourselves ...

[Ntxw]

Spring-like weather we're having huh?

After a little research, we may have a slow severe weather season in Texas. Last year wasn't up to par as we saw drought get established up and down the plains. It has not improved this year so the dryline and moisture will most likely be shifted east. Dixie/Ohio valley will probably be the favored areas.

[dhweather]

Spring-like weather we're having huh?

After a little research, we may have a slow severe weather season in Texas. Last year wasn't up to par as we saw drought get established up and down the plains. It has not improved this year so the dryline and moisture will most likely be shifted east. Dixie/Ohio valley will probably be the favored areas.

I completely agree. Tornado Alley ain't what it used to be.

[Ntxw]

March-May outlook from Jamstec

[CYCLONE MIKE]

Been spring around here since that upper low that came through and gave us our few days of coldest high temps and little snow further north this short winter. But it is all over now with severe storm season just around the corner. Water temps are starting to warm up for spring fishing and about to dust the golf clubs off and get ready for golf for the next 10 months.

[weatherdude1108]

68-69 degrees when I got up this morning on my weather station. The drive into work around 7:15 am showed 70 degrees on the car thermometer when I started the trek. When I got to work, it showed 72.

What month are we in again?!?!

[Ntxw]

Maybe it's time to spring cancel, winter may be coming back with vengeance

[Fehize]

I wish I had a piece of winter. The cold front is going to be a soft effect for us down here, dropping us into the mid 7o's instead of the 9o or so we had today. ;/

[Ntxw]

Heads up to the I-35 corridor, severe thunderstorm line is coming into the DFW area. Austin area is under a tornado watch and there are super-cells just to your west with hooks on them, stay alert tonight.

Potent weather coming through right now.

[Texas Snowman]

Potent weather coming through right now.

That weather became even more potent east of Texas.

Major wedge tornado just plowed through Hattiesburg, MS. Apparently went down the city's major thorough-fare and hit at least a portion of the Southern Miss Univ campus.

[vbhoutex]

Latest from Jeff Lindner.Will we see more severe Thursday?

Next storm system quickly arrives into the area Wed-Thurs with strong to severe thunderstorms possible.


Fast progressive upper air pattern will bring another upper level storm system and Pacific cold front into the area by Thursday. Cool front from last night has pushed into the NW Gulf this morning with a dry and cool air mass in place over SE TX. High clouds are already starting to stream ENE from central MX in response to the next digging trough out west. Front will stall over the NW Gulf today while moisture begins to return northward from both the Gulf and Pacific above the surface cold dome. Will see a rapid increase in cloud cover from SW to NE tonight as moisture surges northward above the cold dome. Skies will be cloudy be sunrise Wednesday with lifting of the incoming moist air mass over the cool dome producing periods of showers, light rain, fog and drizzle. Showers will become numerous by early afternoon as a lead short wave crosses the area helping to enhance lift. Additionally, the warm front will move northward and approach the coast by mid afternoon on Wednesday. Surface based instability appears limited, but there appears to be some elevated instability and thunderstorms may become more numerous as the day progresses near and north of the warm front. Not expecting much severe weather on Wednesday, but a few of the elevated storms could produce some hail.

As a surface low deepens over central TX on Wednesday night, the attached warm front downstream over the upper TX coast should progress inland and through much of SE TX by Thursday morning. Area will become under the influence of the warm sector, but also under the increasing influence of capping from the SSW. Approach of the main upper trough across NW TX into OK will push a cold front eastward across central TX and as this boundary encounters the warm and moist air mass east of I-35 expected thunderstorms to develop. Strong linear forcing is suggested indicating more of a line than discrete cells. However strong lift will also be overspread the northward moving warm front which should be along a line from near Temple to Lufkin Thursday morning. Convection will become increasingly surface based and the air mass will be highly sheared in the low level, so supercells with tornadoes will be possible along and near the warm frontal boundary which could be over our northern set of counties. One drawback for a significant severe weather outbreak appears to be limited instability with CAPE values of 800-1500 J/kg over the region. Low level shear is impressive however and storms that are able to root near the surface will have rotating updrafts.

South of the warm front across the warm sector and the rest of SE TX, the linear forcing along the advancing front combined with a strong upper level sub-tropical jet overhead should result in a line of thunderstorms or squall line to move across the area from W to E during the morning hours. There will be a severe threat with this line also…with the main threat being wind damage, but isolated tornadoes in any “notches” in the line will be possible given low level helicity values of 200-400 m^2/s^2. How far south this line of storms extends will depend on the intensity of the capping advecting NNE from S TX. Forecast models are not overly excessive with the cap, but time of day (early to mid morning) does not bode well for any heating as compared to yesterday when surface heating was able to weaken the cap and lift from a short wave enticed convection through the mid level warm layer. Will review the severe parameters again Wednesday AM as by this point there should be a decent handle on the threat and the most likely severe modes.

Cold front Thursday afternoon slows and stalls just offshore with clouds and possible showers lingering near the coast early Friday. GFS has come in wet on Saturday as this model amplifies another short wave and drops it across TX, but no other models currently suggest this scenario. For now will follow the dry guidance and keep skies partly cloudy and conditions dry unless the other major models begin to trend toward the wetter GFS solution.

[wxman57]

Good. Glad to get out of that nasty winter weather thread. Time to put away those thoughts of snow and look for a little rain in Texas. 12Z GFS and 00Z Euro suggest that a storm system passing to the north on the 9th-10th could develop a squall line with some decent rain across Texas. That's the earliest I see any potential for something significant.

[Portastorm]

That is potentially some good news, wxman57! The models have been consistent for days now showing a strong system plowing through Texas around that time. Let's hope it verifies.

[wxman57]

Of course, I'll also be looking for a little HEAT around here! Freezing my butt off...

GFS has us in the mid 70s on Monday - before it cools down again.

[KatDaddy]

I am so ready for sunny warm weekends!

[dhweather]

GFS 192 hours out.

[weatherdude1108]

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AUSTIN/SAN ANTONIO TX
545 AM CST SAT MAR 2 2013

.PREV DISCUSSION... /ISSUED 319 AM CST SAT MAR 2 2013/

DISCUSSION...
A STRONG N-NWLY FLOW ALOFT TODAY INTO SUNDAY WILL MAINTAIN A COOL-DRY
SURFACE AIRMASS OVER THE REGION. COOLER TODAY AND COLD AGAIN
TONIGHT WITH A FREEZE ACROSS THE HILL COUNTRY...BUT WARMER SUNDAY
AS AS SOUTHERLY BREEZES QUICKLY RETURN.

POPS WILL CONTINUE TO BE NEAR ZERO THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF NEXT WEEK
AS A DRY WESTERLY FLOW PREVAIL ALOFT. ANOTHER DRY COLD FRONT ON
TUESDAY WILL BRIEFLY DROP TEMPERATURES TUESDAY INTO WEDNESDAY WITH
A FREEZE FOR THE HILL COUNTRY WEDNESDAY MORNING. THE SURFACE
RIDGE SLIDES EAST WEDNESDAY NIGHT/THURSDAY AS PRESSURES LOWER IN
WEST TX IN RESPONSE A N APPROACHING UPPER TROUGH. LOW LEVEL GULF
MOISTURE WILL RETURN THURSDAY INTO FRIDAY IN ADVANCE OF THE UPPER
TROUGH/LOW DROPPING INTO THE GREAT BASIN/DESERT SOUTHWEST. THERE
COULD BE SOME PATCHY DRIZZLE OR ISOLATED LOW LEVEL STREAMER
SHOWERS THURSDAY MORNING INTO FRIDAY. HAVE GONE WITH SLIGHT CHANCE
SHOWERS BEGINNING FRIDAY INTO SATURDAY. BETTER CHANCES OF
CONVECTION SATURDAY NIGHT INTO SUNDAY AS THE UPPER TROUGH SLOWLY
TRACKS EASTWARD ACROSS THE SRN ROCKIES AND INTO THE MID WEST
REGION OVER NEXT WEEKEND. APPEARS S TX WILL BE ON TAIL END OF A
LINE OF ORGANIZED CONVECTION SATURDAY NIGHT/SUNDAY MORNING.

FIRE WEATHER...
THERE WILL CONTINUE TO BE ELEVATED TO BRIEFLY NEAR CRITICAL FIRE
WEATHER CONDITIONS EACH DAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY AS A VERY DRY
AIRMASS REMAINS ENTRENCHED ACROSS SOUTH TEXAS. ALTHOUGH MINIMUM
HUMIDITIES WILL REACH NEAR CRITICAL LEVELS EACH AFTERNOON...ESPECIALLY
ACROSS THE WESTERN CWA. RETURN GULF MOISTURE LATE NEXT WEEK
SHOULD MITIGATE THE FIRE WEATHER THREAT THURSDAY INTO NEXT
WEEKEND.

&&

[horselattitudesfarm]

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AUSTIN/SAN ANTONIO TX
545 AM CST SAT MAR 2 2013

.PREV DISCUSSION... /ISSUED 319 AM CST SAT MAR 2 2013/
DISCUSSION...
"............. APPEARS S TX WILL BE ON TAIL END OF A
LINE OF ORGANIZED CONVECTION SATURDAY NIGHT/SUNDAY MORNING."

There's that 'Tail-End' thing again. Always seems like South Texas gets the *ss end of these systems. By the way, take a look at this: Looks like Travis is now lower than last year at this time :
[/URL]

Gonna need some big spring rain events to help out, kinda like the one last year you can see on graph near March 15th.

[weatherdude1108]

:uarrow:

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AUSTIN/SAN ANTONIO TX
545 AM CST SAT MAR 2 2013

.PREV DISCUSSION... /ISSUED 319 AM CST SAT MAR 2 2013/
DISCUSSION...
"............. APPEARS S TX WILL BE ON TAIL END OF A
LINE OF ORGANIZED CONVECTION SATURDAY NIGHT/SUNDAY MORNING."

There's that 'Tail-End' thing again. Always seems like South Texas gets the *ss end of these systems. By the way, take a look at this: Looks like Travis is now lower than last year at this time :
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/4489 ... rch2nd.jpg[/URL]

Gonna need some big spring rain events to help out, kinda like the one last year you can see on graph near March 15th.

Yeah. It would be nice to have normal/above normal Spring rains. The hydrological pump was primed a few times last year when soil saturation was at its limit. The problem is that it stopped raining for a month or so between rain events. So the "priming of the pump" had to start from scratch each time it rained again for the soil profile to resaturate and allow for any runoff into the surface water (lakes). The soils acted like a sponge every time it rained. What runoff we had didn't last long because the "faucet" shut off long enough to dry the soils out. So we essentially got nowhere at the ---- end of the stick despite the increased rainfall. Sneaky, sad irony. Hmmm.

[dhweather]

Yeah. It would be nice to have normal/above normal Spring rains. The hydrological pump was primed a few times last year when soil saturation was at its limit. The problem is that it stopped raining for a month or so between rain events. So the "priming of the pump" had to start from scratch each time it rained again for the soil profile to resaturate and allow for any runoff into the surface water (lakes). The soils acted like a sponge every time it rained. What runoff we had didn't last long because the "faucet" shut off long enough to dry the soils out. So we essentially got nowhere at the ---- end of the stick despite the increased rainfall. Sneaky, sad irony. Hmmm.

That's the really frustrating part. Getting a significant amount of rain once, followed by 2-3 months of basically none, that just feeds the vicious cycle.