Texas Winter 2014-2015

[Rgv20]

12zGFS depicts a 1040+mb High just north of the Panhandle by Wednesday Morning and a strong upper level low in Arizona...Strong Arctic front coming down folks!

[Portastorm]

Perv12z GFS, precip starts breaking out New Years Eve morning in south Texas and spreads north throughout the day. But what's really interesting is how it progs a longer duration event than in previous runs. Definitely raises an eyebrow.

[Ntxw]

Just by the gfs progs way out, it looks like ice storm for a large swath underneath arctic front. Deeper cold is hanging in the northwest half of the state. But those are details that will change so far out. Quite possible someone will get an ice storm somewhere.

[wxman57]

12Z GFS keeps the sub-freezing air north of the Gulf Coast on the 31st-1st. No snow for the coast. It's probably under-forecasting the southward movement of the Arctic air, as is typical in such cases. The main question is whether or not the upper trof will move across Texas once the cold air is in place.

[Rgv20]

12Z GFS keeps the sub-freezing air north of the Gulf Coast on the 31st-1st. No snow for the coast. It's probably under-forecasting the southward movement of the Arctic air, as is typical in such cases. The main question is whether or not the upper trof will move across Texas once the cold air is in place.

We shall see what the 12zGFS Parallel shows in about 15-20 minutes as far as Forecast 2M Temperature for the 31st-1st. At least with each passing model run the only thing that its becoming clear is that a Strong Arctic Front is in the offering for all of Texas!

[TeamPlayersBlue]

Now lets say an HP comes down like the GFS says, surely it would be freezing to very close to the gulf coast right? Models are a bit off? The precip in this type of scenario would be hopefully similar to one of our wash out days of rain except this time with winter precip.

[Brent]

GFS Parallel is opening the arctic gates

[srainhoutx]

The 12Z parallel GFS leaves a SW disturbance behind and has some chilly air in place into January 2nd. If that SW upper disturbance is there, that tends to suggest a SW flow aloft continues until the upper trough finally moves by.

[Rgv20]

12zUKMET at the end of its run (144hrs) shows a similar 500mb setup to the 12zGFS...Winter is Coming to Texas!

12zUKMET 500mb forecast valid for Tuesday Morning..

[TeamPlayersBlue]

The GFS cant be handling it well. For Sugar Land it has the lowest temps for 925 mb at 4C and 850 mb at 10C.

[ronyan]

GFS doesn't have a good grasp of the surface with these fronts, 12z has a stronger high building in Idaho than 6z but the surface is considerably warmer in SE TX on the 12z run.

Temps are difficult to forecast with arctic fronts, I like to watch the upstream temps ahead of the front as it's coming down from the North before being confident in a prediction.

[srainhoutx]

The 12Z Canadian continues the general theme of a cold and stormy New Years Eve/New Years Day.

[orangeblood]

12Z Crazy Canadian has a bit more sanity now, trending towards the other models further southwest solutions....this storm next week has the potential to be a very rare setup in this part of the world, a WIDESPREAD event impacting a huge part of Texas (extremely rare to get this type cold so far south with so much upper level energy/moisture hanging back to our west) ..... The stars are beginning to align, need a few more model runs to establish that a storm will be there then finer details can be ironed out this weekend.

The very conservative Canadian Model even has the storm now....

[ronyan]

As wxman said, snow totals would probably be heavier near the coast of TX if this develops with sufficient cold air in place. I'm slightly biased, being ~5 mi from the coast.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

12Z Crazy Canadian has a bit more sanity now, trending towards the other models further southwest solutions....this storm next week has the potential to be a very rare setup in this part of the world, a WIDESPREAD event impacting a huge part of Texas (extremely rare to get this type cold so far south with so much upper level energy/moisture hanging back to our west) ..... The stars are beginning to align, need a few more model runs to establish that a storm will be there then finer details can be ironed out this weekend.

The very conservative Canadian Model even has the storm now....

[img]http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gem/2014122412/gem_asnow_us_37.pn g[/img]

Now, of course im biased, but the Canadian temps looks about right. I think thats a good idea of what we would expect with a 1050 MB HP coming into the US. Keeps it at 1041 to about San Angelo too. Moisture wise, id expect about 12 hours or precip. Most of the time thats what we get from the these Lows that form from the STJ. Anything more than that i would be suspect. That sound fair?

Also, if it sticks around long enough, maybe three days, the STJ can reload and provide another winter precip event. Im not trying to be greedy here though.

[BigB0882]

SELA is always right on the cusp. I hope we don't miss out by 100 miles or so.

[srainhoutx]

The 12Z Euro has a 1051mb Arctic High dropping S into Montana.

[Kennethb]

Is the Canadian model ever forecast correct in Canada? I would never trust it at all. This is a classic case of ridge over SE helps force cold air down the leeside of the Rockies into Texas. Lower dewpoints there help to provide good wintry precip opps, while us here in south Louisiana get the higher dewpoints which usually equate to 35 degrees and a nice cold rain and north part of LA gets in on the action. Still a week out with final details probably not determined until the event is occurring.

[Ntxw]

In the past I've noticed set ups like this features two events. With a SW trof a piece will probably kick out ahead along the arctic front. I think this is where the biggest threat of an ice storm will be, with the SOI crash the STJ will make noise. Then when the actual upper trof kicks out usually at the back end when cold air starts to retreat is when areas further south sees wintry precip as snowcover is down up north. Just something to think about.

[ronyan]

12z Euro has a huge 1054mb Arctic high in Wyoming @ 168 hrs. Cold air plunges straight South into S TX, looks like a setup where Brownsville could get the front before Houston. The horizontal temperature gradient is impressive at 850mb.