Texas Winter 2014-2015

[Ralph's Weather]

Why is the WPC showing such a high chance of freezing rain for dfw tonight? http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/pwpf/wwd_a ... babilities

The first map accounts for what fell this morning.

Are you sure? latest brand new update WPC says 00z january 2nd (now) - 00z january 3rd (tomorrow night)
It has 0% chance for Dallas, 70% for Fort Worth & 90% for Denton... http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/pwpf/wwd_a ... babilities

You are correct. I guess temps may fall just enough west of FW.

[SouthernMet]

Yup & WPC + short range models showing very significant icing potential for the Abilene/Sweetwater area tonight in addition to what's already fallen.

Btw only made it up to a balmy 33 in NRH today, though I think temps will hold steady with waa & maybe even rise a degree or so, but I'll be watching closely tonight.

[SouthernMet]

Still 33 in NRH, 32 in Mineral Wells, Decatur, Azle & Weatherford.. Crazy how we are just a few degrees away from a major event.

Meanwhile models are setting the stage for a dangerous ice storm out in West & West central tx from tonight through friday night.

[Yukon Cornelius]

Looks like we are in store for an ice or winter mix event in my area. The bad iced just barely missed us earlier.

[GRAYSONCO.WX]

Still 33 in NRH, 32 in Mineral Wells, Decatur, Azle & Weatherford.. Crazy how we are just a few degrees away from a major event.

Meanwhile models are setting the stage for a dangerous ice storm out in West & West central tx from tonight through friday night.

Yes, looks like some pretty moderate/heavy freezing rain (and even sleet--looking at soundings) amounts for that area tomorrow! I wonder how close the wintry precipitation will get to I-35 tomorrow evening? Guidance seems to be trending further east with each run.

[SouthernMet]

Im definitely going to watch it, but I don't anticipate any surprises atm east of Mineral Wells.

Could be some decent convection looking at trends. Gonna be interesting with the low moving closer & either way, heavy precip with 33 degrees is NOT fun.

[GRAYSONCO.WX]

:uarrow: Im definitely going to watch it, but I don't anticipate any surprises atm east of Mineral Wells.

Could be some decent convection looking at trends. Gonna be interesting with the low moving closer & either way, heavy precip with 33 degrees is NOT fun.

Yes, not fun at all!

[SouthernMet]

Way too quiet on here!!

Meanwhile temps have risen just enough for this band that's moving through to cause no impacts east of a Stephenville-Decatur line.

[CaptinCrunch]

If you didn't see any freezing precip this go around don't worry, January looks to be locked and loaded for plenty of winter fun and surprises. The forecast for NTX over the next 10 days looks to keep highs only in the mid to lower 40's.

[SouthernMet]

Reports of significant icing in Eastland County.

[SouthernMet]

CMC/RGEM trended alot colder for saturday morning.

[GRAYSONCO.WX]

CMC/RGEM trended alot colder for saturday morning.

[orangeblood]

Well, let's be clear about one thing ... while those of us along the I-35 corridor didnt see much, if any, wintry precip ... our friends in San Angelo, Midland/Odessa, and Lubbock are encased in ice right now. So they did see a mess materialize. This event was not a bust IMO. In fact, the GFS did pretty darn good and was fairly consistent while King Euro had a few nutty cycles.

What did we learn from this event? I know we can no longer assume a 1050+ mb high coming into Montana will automatically mean sub freezing temps for a large portion of Texas. Even wxman57 felt like the models were too warm ... and he's a very good pro met whose been watching weather in these parts for many years.

Bottom line to me is that our weather never ceases to amaze us and surprise us. We can all learn from this event. I know I'll be asking some of my met friends offline what happened and why. And here's a shout out to you skeptics ... keep your skepticism! You were right to be skeptical and you may end up keeping some of us excitable types more grounded.

1. This was the first major arctic front in the plains since mid-November 2. We just came off a near record warm December for the contiguous 48. 3. Not much snow cover combined with 1 and 2 led to modification of the air mass. 3. The air mass wasn't unusually cold to start with.

Somewhat skeptical of the above reasons...this airmass had majority of the ingredients needed 1) Siberian Origin of below normal air 2) Huge HP 3) Upper Air Pattern to deliver 4) Plenty of Snow Cover from the Arctic Circle down to Kansas 5) Coldest 30 day period climatologically of the year 6) The air mass was record breaking for some - ended up breaking Denver's 120 year record on December 30th for lowest high max of 1 deg F and low min of -19 deg F....IMO, the combination of the Ozark Shadow (lower level winds/orientation of the HP) and strong southwest flow aloft (too strong to keep the HP sustained) kept the airmass from packing the punch we should expect in North and Northeast Texas. Those out in West Texas are probably taking this airmass pretty seriously!

[WacoWx]

I'm leaving Ruidoso early Saturday morning 1/3. When I go through Lubbock to watch Texas beat Texas Tech in bball, how much trouble am I going to have? Tia

[SouthernMet]

I'm leaving Ruidoso early Saturday morning 1/3. When I go through Lubbock to watch Texas beat Texas Tech in bball, how much trouble am I going to have? Tia

Lubbock NWS says .25" of ice + 2-4" of snow with locally higher amounts.

[gpsnowman]

Not sure if I can post this, but Ryan Muae posted a map showing a 1050 HP centered over Nebrasksa on January 8. Arctic hammer?

[Tammie]

I'm leaving Ruidoso early Saturday morning 1/3. When I go through Lubbock to watch Texas beat Texas Tech in bball, how much trouble am I going to have? Tia

Lubbock now predicting a major ice storm with 1 inch of ice followed by 4-6 inches of snow. Daughter-in-law lives in Lubbock. Roads are already treacherous, and they will only get worse. Hubby is an air traffic controller at the Lubbock airport. Only one flight lane open right now, and the airport will likely shut down all flights once ice storm starts.

[srainhoutx]

I'm leaving Ruidoso early Saturday morning 1/3. When I go through Lubbock to watch Texas beat Texas Tech in bball, how much trouble am I going to have? Tia

US 380 across NM can get a bit icy after days of wintry weather into Roswell. The roads are usually cleared fairly well by NM DOT on up into Ruidoso. Have a safe trip. Ski Apache should do well with this southern tracking 700mb low.

[vbhoutex]

Well, let's be clear about one thing ... while those of us along the I-35 corridor didnt see much, if any, wintry precip ... our friends in San Angelo, Midland/Odessa, and Lubbock are encased in ice right now. So they did see a mess materialize. This event was not a bust IMO. In fact, the GFS did pretty darn good and was fairly consistent while King Euro had a few nutty cycles.

What did we learn from this event? I know we can no longer assume a 1050+ mb high coming into Montana will automatically mean sub freezing temps for a large portion of Texas. Even wxman57 felt like the models were too warm ... and he's a very good pro met whose been watching weather in these parts for many years.

Bottom line to me is that our weather never ceases to amaze us and surprise us. We can all learn from this event. I know I'll be asking some of my met friends offline what happened and why. And here's a shout out to you skeptics ... keep your skepticism! You were right to be skeptical and you may end up keeping some of us excitable types more grounded.

1. This was the first major arctic front in the plains since mid-November 2. We just came off a near record warm December for the contiguous 48. 3. Not much snow cover combined with 1 and 2 led to modification of the air mass. 3. The air mass wasn't unusually cold to start with.

Somewhat skeptical of the above reasons...this airmass had majority of the ingredients needed 1) Siberian Origin of below normal air 2) Huge HP 3) Upper Air Pattern to deliver 4) Plenty of Snow Cover from the Arctic Circle down to Kansas 5) Coldest 30 day period climatologically of the year 6) The air mass was record breaking for some - ended up breaking Denver's 120 year record on December 30th for lowest high max of 1 deg F and low min of -19 deg F....IMO, the combination of the Ozark Shadow (lower level winds/orientation of the HP) and strong southwest flow aloft (too strong to keep the HP sustained) kept the airmass from packing the punch we should expect in North and Northeast Texas. Those out in West Texas are probably taking this airmass pretty seriously!

Orangeblood hit that nail square on the head!! The extra cold airr has been and still is dammed up against the mountains in W TX. I think the NE winds at lower levels and SW aloft is what did us in anywhere East of I35 when it comes to Winter precip. We're almost into the 50s in Houston for the first time in 3 or 4 days.

[ATCcane]

To add to the above, west of I35 and north of I10 it's still quite cold. I'm sitting here on the northwest side of austin at 39 and we haven't been out of the 30s on my weather station for quite a while. You don't have to go very far west of here to get into the mid and lower 30s and in west Texas and eastern New Mexico it's still in the 20s.

The next couple weeks are still looking chilly on he last few model runs. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.