TX winter wx thread: Spring-like pattern

[pwrdog]

There seems to be some colder air building in Alaska and Russia.... I see some -50 F to -60 F out there... That's about 10 degrees colder than the last outbreak that dropped my temp's down to 22 just north of Houston and 18 near Austin...

If the air does move down it might be just a tad colder this time around if we get the right conditions.. wind, clouds ect...

I'm not sure we will see the near record high pressure's again though...

[TxWxFrisco]

It would be nice if we could get a good snow pack up north of us to keep that cold air from modifiying if indeed it makes a move in our direction. The last good push of cold air in Dec. had a snow pack that for the most part streched from the Canadian border south to northern Oklahoma.

[cctxhurricanewatcher]

A morning perusal of the 0z and 6z GFS and the 0z Euro and 0z Canadian ... all I can say is that the GFS is widely variable on what will happen next week and beyond. I don't have much confidence in its runs. Both the Euro and Canadian show a ridge building north from the NW Pacific by the middle of next week. Perhaps that will signal a cold air dump by the following weekend. Who knows at this point.

BTW, I don't know if this link below will work or not (hopefully it does): check this out. It's from the Accuweather site and is based on the computer numbers from the 6z GFS. Snow for Austin!!!

http://www.accuweather.com/forecast3.as ... 1&metric=0

Yea and snow for Corpus on Tuesday the 22nd.

http://www.accuweather.com/forecast-15d ... code=78410



But all in all, the trend is for cooler to colder weather. I'd be curious if the NWS DFW will talk about the McFarland set up again this afternoon. With the last cold shot (New Years eve), they were last on board for a significant cool down and is was surprising to see them point that out for that far in the long range. On the otherside, NWS Brownsville was talking about Omega blocks and McFarland set ups then and nothing happened. We thought maybe one of them oldtimers came off leave or somthing. But they have not even mentioned a drastic cooldown in their recent discussions.

Like you said, McFarland raises alot of eyebrows in these parts from weather watchers. It's kind of like a hurricane watch and it gets us cold weather lovers in these parts something to prepare for even tough it may very well be a miss.

[TxWxFrisco]

It seems that the night shift met. that writes the DFW AFD's is the one that usually writes these little tidbits and there was no mention of it in the overnight discussion. It could be that he didn't work last night. My brother in law works in the NWS Fort Worth office and he tells me that they do have a variable shift schedule.

An interesting note that was in the over night discussion was this:

"OF INTEREST IN DESCRIBING TX WINTERS...KDFW LOW JAN
2...23. KDFW LOW JAN 7...68. /84"

Oh what a difference a couple of days make!

[pwrdog]

A morning perusal of the 0z and 6z GFS and the 0z Euro and 0z Canadian ... all I can say is that the GFS is widely variable on what will happen next week and beyond. I don't have much confidence in its runs. Both the Euro and Canadian show a ridge building north from the NW Pacific by the middle of next week. Perhaps that will signal a cold air dump by the following weekend. Who knows at this point.

BTW, I don't know if this link below will work or not (hopefully it does): check this out. It's from the Accuweather site and is based on the computer numbers from the 6z GFS. Snow for Austin!!!

http://www.accuweather.com/forecast3.as ... 1&metric=0

Yea and snow for Corpus on Tuesday the 22nd.

http://www.accuweather.com/forecast-15d ... code=78410

Corpus has gotten more snow than I have over the last 25 years and I live much farther north.. 60 miles north of houston..

I remember a good snow storm down there in the mid eighties and another just a couple of years ago..

[cctxhurricanewatcher]

A morning perusal of the 0z and 6z GFS and the 0z Euro and 0z Canadian ... all I can say is that the GFS is widely variable on what will happen next week and beyond. I don't have much confidence in its runs. Both the Euro and Canadian show a ridge building north from the NW Pacific by the middle of next week. Perhaps that will signal a cold air dump by the following weekend. Who knows at this point.

BTW, I don't know if this link below will work or not (hopefully it does): check this out. It's from the Accuweather site and is based on the computer numbers from the 6z GFS. Snow for Austin!!!

http://www.accuweather.com/forecast3.as ... 1&metric=0

Yea and snow for Corpus on Tuesday the 22nd.

http://www.accuweather.com/forecast-15d ... code=78410

Corpus has gotten more snow than I have over the last 25 years and I live much farther north.. 60 miles north of houston..

I remember a good snow storm down there in the mid eighties and another just a couple of years ago..

The storm in the 80's provided Corpus and the RGV a good Ice Storm. San Antonio got a foot of snow from that one.

The 2004 event was the one that got Corpus, Victoria and the RGV with a good 6 to 14 inches of snow.

While on the subject, that silly 12z GFS.

[jasons2k]

Here's the latest from Jeff Lindner - have fun with this one!

Far Range Extended:

GFS and ensembles continue to hint at major 500mb pattern amplification next week and into the week of the 21st. Latest run of the GFS is showing enough blocking and then breaking down of high latitude blocking and pivoting of the Hudson Bay vortex to allow some bitter cold to enter the US. Main question is will there be bitter cold over Alaska and Canada when the pattern favors its southward delivery. Other aspect is an increasingly noisy southern branch/sub-tropical flow which may load lots of moisture over any potential strong cold dome. GFS has been showing off and on multiple weather system capable of winter precip. in the period starting around the 18th and continuing through the 25th of this month. Way too far off to latch on to any system…but any good forecaster should at least recognize the pattern and potential for cold and the details will work themselves out in the next week as to how much cold will be available and how much will come southward and where the moisture lays.

[TxWxFrisco]

I was looking at the 12z GFS and to my untrained eyes I see lots of potential for an overrunning event if the cold were to verify...

Hurry up and wait..lol

[gboudx]

Thanks for posting Jason. I get some emails from jeff when the Dallas area is going to be affected by something, but I don't get all his emails.

[Ed Mahmoud]

0Z GFS dashes hopes from about a week ago of a Giants-Cowboys playoff game in the snow




0Z doesn't go out to possible Green Bay vs Dallas game yet, and I can't stay up that late.


18Z is probably on the borderline temp wise for snow as game time nears, with precip approaching, with 540 dm line and 850 mb freezing near Dallas, but South to Southeast winds predict bitter disappointment... for snow lovers, not Cowboy fans...

[TxWxFrisco]

Wow, 06Z GFS looks interesting for N. Texas late next week...

Definately picking up on some cold air moving in and showing quiet a bit of storminess over the state... As I stated above, if this were to verify, this looks to be a impressive overrunning event.

[Portastorm]

The GFS has been dashing a lot of hopes, Ed, but what else is new, right?!

Both the 0z and 6z GFS today are much less bullish on Arctic air impacting the southern Plains by next weekend. Seems like the model is setting up a battle line of very cold air and warmer, more moist air from Texas to New England. JB talks about this a bit in his blog this morning.

The 0z Euro still suggests a strong front through Texas in 7-8 days.

Lots of variability right now in the modeling. Hard to trust anything, really. But given how much above normal we have been, you have to think we will see some below normal temps in the next few weeks or we'll set records for how warm this winter will be!

TxWxFrisco: I saw that, too, about your area in the 6z run ... but it still is warmer than what the model was showing yesterday.

[bktkckak]

Where is JBs blog?

[Portastorm]

Where is JBs blog?

Forgive my use of the vernacular. JB is Joe Bastardi, one of Accuweather's main long-range forecaster. He's highly opinionated and, as you'll see, his forecasts and his style of communicating seem to elicite strong responses from the weather enthusiast community.

His blog is on the Accuweather pay-per-view site. Consequently, I'm unable to post any links.

[bktkckak]

Thanks for the quick response!

I knew to whom you were referring, just did not know where the blog was located. Apparently it is behind a money firewall!

[TxWxFrisco]

Portastorm,

And the flip flop continues on the GFS but for winter lovers, things are looking better than they were this time last week. (less extremes in the flip flops...)

"He's highly opinionated and, as you'll see, his forecasts and his style of communicating seem to elicite strong responses from the weather enthusiast community."

No truer words have been spoken...lol

[srainhoutx]

HPC "hinting" a pattern change next week as NE PAC ridge builds and large trough extends from NE Canada to the Great Basin..

http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/preepd/preepd.html

Could get interesting as the days unfold. Stay Tuned.

[Portastorm]

Indeed!

The 12z GFS run continues to show a wintry precip event for portions of central/north/west Texas at about 204 hrs:

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod ... _204.shtml

If I'm reading this map right, the event would only be a cold rain for anyone south of a Tyler-Waco-San Angelo line.

[gboudx]

Indeed!

The 12z GFS run continues to show a wintry precip event for portions of central/north/west Texas at about 204 hrs:

Well, I better go buy me a snowshovel.

[wall_cloud]

Corpus has gotten more snow than I have over the last 25 years and I live much farther north.. 60 miles north of houston..

I remember a good snow storm down there in the mid eighties and another just a couple of years ago..

In the last 25 years, Corpus Christi has only had measurable snow one time. Dec 24-25, 2004. They received 4.4 inches (the 6 to 14 inch amounts were in a narrow band around Victoria). Prior to that, the last measurable snowfall was in early 1973. There was no snowstorm in Corpus Christi during the 80s at all. Surely you've had 5 inches of snow since 1973.

Here is a write-up on that 2004 storm: Corpus Christi White Christmas