Texas Fall 2012

[somethingfunny]

Did any of you catch the Monarch Butterfly migration on Friday? I was sitting outside as the south winds died off and the muggy skies cleared, and lo and behold.... big orange butterflies appeared. I didn't see huge clouds of them like I've seen on Animal Planet but I counted several dozen over about ten minutes. Then once the northerly winds blew through, the butterflies were gone!

[somethingfunny]

As of the 3:53 AM official reporting station updates, Love Field is at 45 degrees and DFW at 44. The typical cold spot (in summer, anyway) of Mesquite Metro is only at 43. Fort Worth Spinks, Decatur, and Sherman/Denison are down to 39, Bridgeport is 36, and Fort Worth Alliance is all the way down to 35!

The record low for Saturday the 6th was 43 and the record low for Sunday the 7th was 42. We would have a real good shot at setting a record today (Monday the 8th) if there wasn't an insanely abnormal record low of 29 for this date at DFW.

This cold snap is crazy for early October.

[somethingfunny]

^ I got bad information from a certain TV meteorologist. The record was 39, not 29.

Record Lows Mon Oct 8 2012 (prelim)

Oklahoma City OK 31F ** earliest Fall freeze on record, old Oct 9 2000**
Abilene TX 34F tied 1921
San Angelo TX 36F
Dallas TX 39F tied 1921

-justin-

[somethingfunny]

Low temperatures this morning were quite cold with a freeze in the Breckenridge, Graham, Decatur, Jacksboro, and Bowie areas. Lows were warmer to the southeast. Middle to upper 30s were common from Comanche to DFW to the Paris region and 40s were common across the southern zones. The average first freeze for our northwestern counties is mid-November and this is more than a month early!

[Terri]

Well, that was quick...

[gpsnowman]

Yuck. It appears we are about to enter a warm/humid stretch for a while. Oh well, maybe we can get some rain out of it later this week. Hearing rumblings of another cool shot by October 20. We shall see.

[Ntxw]

I'm not seeing a major cold front on the 20th, cool down maybe but zonal flow suggest pacific fronts and not polar. Look to the week of Halloween for cold but long ways off. Severe weather may be of more importance next weekend.

[Tireman4]

I'm not seeing a major cold front on the 20th, cool down maybe but zonal flow suggest pacific fronts and not polar. Look to the week of Halloween for cold but long ways off. Severe weather may be of more importance next weekend.

Halloween. Halloween. Nooooo. I have a race on October 27. This is just groovy. I have to deal with hot and humid until then. Great. LOL.

[Texas Snowman]

Joe Bastardi tweeted yesterday that he sees a prolonged period of significant cold on the Nov. 5-15 horizon.

In the meantime, fairly significant severe weather threat setting up for portions of the southern Great Plains later this week.

October's mini-tornado seasons is upon us perhaps.

Can do without the severe threat, but we need some more rain in the Red River Valley.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

Must have missed that JB tweet. Prolly got lost in one of his political rants.

[Texas Snowman]

Yeah, but it's his personal Twitter account, not Weatherbell's.

And it is election season. LOTS of tweets on my Twitter feed about politics right now (from weather guys, politicians, hunters/anglers, sports writers, entertainers, friends, family, etc.).

[Texas Snowman]

Here it is:

"@BigJoeBastardi: So forecast by me would look for next major cold reload Nov. 5-15 if this holds. For whatever reason, it is there over here."

[somethingfunny]

This is really interesting:

http://addins.wrex.com/blogs/weather/20 ... connection

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-n ... tion/80069

Basically, it's about a study suggesting that WPAC typhoon tracks around Japan can predict cold snaps for the United States. When a typhoon moves northwestward into China, our jet stream stays fairly zonal. When they recurve to the east of Japan, there may be an arctic front that pushes east of us into the Southeast US rather than directly down into Texas. When they hit Japan, a cold snap comes directly south into Texas. I don't know if I buy it; Jelawat did hit Japan a week before this giant cooldown we just had, but the cooldown before it was directed more eastward and seemed to follow Sanba, which actually tracked more west of Japan.

Can you see any sort of pattern?







Let's watch this guy closely:

[TeamPlayersBlue]

I also think the Typhoon recurve phenomenon is fascinating. Not sure or thought about the mechanics of how this sort of thing happens but accuweather and JB have talked about this before.

[Ntxw]

This is really interesting:

http://addins.wrex.com/blogs/weather/20 ... connection

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-n ... tion/80069

Basically, it's about a study suggesting that WPAC typhoon tracks around Japan can predict cold snaps for the United States.

I've seen many mets and professionals reference this. Personally (and from several others) it isn't the typhoons themselves that causes this. It's the idea that the troughs in the WPAC (+WPO) are deep enough to pull and recurve the typhoons. It takes a pretty good one to do so, these troughs also pump ridges up in the eastern Pacific (-EPO) as a result and dislodges cold air from NW north America (the typhoons may enhance the trough a bit and pumps the ridge a little more). Then it's up to the more regional pattern to decide where the cold moves, NAO/PNA etc. Any comments on this thought?

[somethingfunny]

I've seen many mets and professionals reference this. Personally (and from several others) it isn't the typhoons themselves that causes this. It's the idea that the troughs in the WPAC (+WPO) are deep enough to pull and recurve the typhoons. It takes a pretty good one to do so, these troughs also pump ridges up in the eastern Pacific (-EPO) as a result and dislodges cold air from NW north America (the typhoons may enhance the trough a bit and pumps the ridge a little more). Then it's up to the more regional pattern to decide where the cold moves, NAO/PNA etc. Any comments on this thought?

That's my thinking on the mechanics of the correlation as well - it's not really causation at all, as much as it is a pair of coinciding symptoms of a particular pattern. If one always happens before the other, we can use it to predict the cold snaps. But I'm not convinced that they actually coincide all the time. What happened in the week or so following Bolaven, and Sanba?

[Ntxw]

This was from formation to dissipation of Bolaven in August



Sanba September



On Sunday for giggles (data isn't out yet for the whole period)



Edit: Models did not handle the current front moving through the Red River valley. Another unseasonably cool day tomorrow in north taxes as it passes through (stalls near Waco). Won't push much further south unfortunately and will retreat by thurs.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

Major Typhoons will be common till about the end of Oct right? I like NTX theory of how it isnt the typhoons themselves causing the trough into the US 2 weeks later but more of what the pattern is like in the WPAC. The Typhoon i think deepens the trough, which in turn pumps the ridge even more. The location of the typhoons making landfall also seems to make sense on the location of the cool air. Maybe we will have one more major typhoon, track its path and see where the cool air goes.

[Portastorm]

Of interest with regards to the typhoon recurve/US cold snap dialogue . . . for the last several cycles, the GFS has been showing a major cooldown into the Southern Plains/Texas late in the period (300 hours and out ... "la-la land.")

Nice discussion here, gang!

[Terri]

The thrill is gone. Somebody out there give me give me some hope..... Halloween?