Very unofficial- Texas season over?

[Ed Mahmoud]

I could be way wrong, but it seems like an early Autumn pattern has set up a month early, and our friend the Wsterlies will be back a while. One October hurricane in 60 years in Texas for a reason, storms have a hard time bucking the Westerlies.


Pattern still has time to revert back to a more normal Summer pattern in the next few weeks, but it doesn't seem like it is in any hurry to change.

Not complaining, getting better rain chances for the lawn under mid-latitude Westerlies than we did all Summer except for Edoaurd.


Looking at the 0Z GFS ensembles, a couple of members suggest a pattern still risky for Texas, but most would suggest well South of, or recurving well before, Texas.



I wouldn't cancel the hurricane policy or flood insurance yet, however.

[Steve]

Gonna disagree Ed. Don't see any of this as an autumn pattern at all. Just a little troughy and rainy right now this way. Look for several more weeks of 90 degree+ readings. If you get a night in the mid-upper 50's, I'll change my tune. What I am wondering is where proverbial high-tide is for the Bermuda High. Is Fay showing its western extent or is it just a product of the current pattern with the high eventually due to nudge a little farther west toward the end of the month? Who knows?

Steve

[Ed Mahmoud]

Gonna disagree Ed. Don't see any of this as an autumn pattern at all. Just a little troughy and rainy right now this way. Look for several more weeks of 90 degree+ readings. If you get a night in the mid-upper 50's, I'll change my tune. What I am wondering is where proverbial high-tide is for the Bermuda High. Is Fay showing its western extent or is it just a product of the current pattern with the high eventually due to nudge a little farther west toward the end of the month? Who knows?

Steve

The mid August sun is why we're not experiencing mid September temps, I'd propose...

[marcus B]

I agree, it is kind of unusual weather pattern for August. Kind of reminds me of 2004. Weather patterns can change though. Lets hope it last, it’s a nice break for our AC bills.

[southerngale]

While I hope you're right as we've seen enough here the past few years to last a lifetime, I think it's pretty ridiculous to post this on August 16th. JMO.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Re: Ridiculous...

Even in a more normal August pattern, Texas doesn't get a hurricane every year.

I heard of unusuallu early snows happening in the Rockies.

Anyway, if I waited to late September or October (going back to the lone October hurricane in sixty years) and said season over, that wouldn't be much of a predicition.

Again, quite unofficial, which is even in the thread title, and I don't see anyone throwing away their emergency supplies or anything over it, so the worst that happens, if the pattern does change drastically and something does come, is I'll have made an incorrect predicition.

[CYCLONE MIKE]

Ed, I feel you could be on to something. Not saying it will happen but could be a early sign. We have had a front a week for the last couple of weeks make it down to our area. Remember a lot of models were showing a major pattern change when fay was a wave out near the islands and were showing a strong bermuda high building expanding westward into the gulf. We all see how long that lasted.

[Frank2]

Ed,

Yesterday I spoke to my sister (who lives in SE Colorado), and, without even mentioning your comment, she mentioned that about 2 week ago she noticed a flock of geese flying southward - about 4-6 weeks ahead of the normal sighting, so, you might be correct!

Frank

[ROCK]

other useless thread....proposing a end to the season for a particular region in the middle of Aug no doubt....

Ed, I would have thought you were above this type of posting givin your background unless of course you are fishing for a reaction in which, in a way, you have suceeded. We are not in a fall pattern nor will Texas be in the clear until Oct. So Ed, wish what you may but I do not concur with any of your ideas.


Paul

[Portastorm]

Gotta concur with ROCK. While this upper level low sinking into Texas this week is very unusual for August ... it by no means portends a long-term pattern change. Until the westerlies truly take over with multiple frontal passages, it's foolishness to consider the Texas tropical weather season over.

Sorry Ed. Love your insights many times ... but don't agree here.

[Ptarmigan]

I wish you were right Ed, but I have a bad feeling we are not out of the woods until October.

[Ed Mahmoud]

other useless thread....proposing a end to the season for a particular region in the middle of Aug no doubt....

Ed, I would have thought you were above this type of posting givin your background unless of course you are fishing for a reaction in which, in a way, you have suceeded. We are not in a fall pattern nor will Texas be in the clear until Oct. So Ed, wish what you may but I do not concur with any of your ideas.


Paul

Not fishing for flames. Just saying, by late September, gets very hard to get anything this far West in the Gulf, and we have a pattern now that seems like it will be slow to change, and by the time it does, it'll be getting too late.

BTW, would it be wildy irresponsible to say Hawaii won't have a hurricane this year? Hypothetical. They could have one, they have had majors. But it has been sixteen years, and it isn't an El Nino year. BTW, just because we still have an mid August, not a late September sun angle and day length, so post frontal temps not in the 50s at night does not mean we aren't in an Autumn pattern. 2 cold fronts in a week is surely not a Summer pattern. Rita hit barely east of Texas after a cold front, so a cold front in itself doesn't mean season over, but it suggests it is getting late.

Like I said, I can wait until the end of September, when climatology is huge on my side, and then say it, but then it isn't much of a prediction. Of course, law of averages says I can say 'no more hurricanes in Texas' on June 1st and be right more often than wrong. Would have been wrong this year and last year, but odds would be in my favor. BTW, I never dismissed the idea of Edoaurd developing, when Bastardi proposed it well over a week before it happened.

Anway, we'll see what we shall see, but come October, if I remember, I'll visit this thread just to bump it to the top. If, for some reason, I'm wrong, I'm sure someone else will do it for me.


Anyhow, the ensembles suggest there is a window for me to be hoist on my own petard, in about two weeks, if the ridge rebuilds East as sort of suggested, but, IIRC, a common error pattern of the GFS is to see pattern changes, but be too quick predicitng them.

[MGC]

It has been a rather unusual August weather pattern here on the Mississippi Coast. We have had at least three cold fronts and allmost continous NW flow aloft. Several of us here at work think we will have an early fall. It has already started snowing in the Rockies west of Denver and Alaska has had a cool summer. My sister lives just outside Anchorage and she can't recall such a cool summer since she has lived there. So, perhaps Texas is out of the woods tropical weather wise. We've only got about seven weeks left to sweat it out here on the coast.....MGC

[ROCK]

Ed, I great site to look up past history on landfalling Texas hurricanes in Sept.

http://maps.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/viewer.html

[Ed Mahmoud]

Ed, I great site to look up past history on landfalling Texas hurricanes in Sept.

http://maps.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/viewer.html

The Great Galveston hurricane was a September hurricane. In a normal year, hurricanes are possible into late September.

I'm saying, this doesn't seem a normal year...

[cheezyWXguy]

Im not sure ed...the high may build back over the south in about a week or two. Im noticing this because by next weekend, rain chances for my area drop off and temperatures climb back to the mid 90's. Assuming that the high builds back, it would probably push storms away from texas anyway, but Im just saying that the summer pattern could come back at any time. I do agree though that an early autumn may be on the horizon based on the unusual strength of the troughs pushing south through the US

[Wx_Warrior]

The latest GFS has "300hr" storm hitting Corpus....

[Ed Mahmoud]

The latest GFS has "300hr" storm hitting Corpus....

12Z GFS 500 mb heights and winds animation

A few times in the next two weeks where GFS shows Westerlies shifting around so flow is from the Northeast, but never the flow from somewhere between ESE and S that would be required to steer a storm into Texas.

Assuming 500 mb flow is generally indicative of ballpark steering of storms. Not perfect, but close.

Anyway, if the GFS is close to right, season is on least at hold through early September...

[Portastorm]

The latest GFS has "300hr" storm hitting Corpus....

12Z GFS 500 mb heights and winds animation

A few times in the next two weeks where GFS shows Westerlies shifting around so flow is from the Northeast, but never the flow from somewhere between ESE and S that would be required to steer a storm into Texas.

Assuming 500 mb flow is generally indicative of ballpark steering of storms. Not perfect, but close.

Anyway, if the GFS is close to right, season is on least at hold through early September...

Ed, while I would caution you to say "c'mon you know better than to base a forecast off of one ensemble run" ... the NCEP ensembles for 2 days in a row now do not show strong ridging off the East Coast up through the end of the month. That would support your assertion. If the same picture is painted tomorrow, I might be willing to agree with you in saying that Texas may be clear of tropical action at least until the end of August. But I would not make any bets about September, at least early September, just yet.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Double posted on models thread..

12Z GFS, as well as outer grid on both 12Z GFDL runs for Hanna and Gustav show lowering pressures either BOC or Western Caribbean, apparently drifting Northward out of the Pacific.


As far as local interest goes, none of the long trackers, IMHO, will reach Texas, and by the time we are in prime time for the Caribbean late September into October, the Westerlies will be well established over the NW Gulf.

Hannag's GFDL has best looking system, a Pacific TC heading into the Atlantic Basin in 5 days...



UK Met kills it crossing Tehuanepec, but shows existing 850 mb vorticity, and looks sort of like Hanna coarse grid.



Satellite does show disturbed weather in the Pacific. This could be the last chance for the Texas people not happy with my possibly premature prediction that we've had our two TCs to pelt me with scorn, rocks, garbage, and eye rolls and other smilies.