Texas Winter 2015-2016

[Portastorm]

Poof? I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!

Yeah Heat Miser! LOL...can you turn the blowtorch off across the Eastern U.S. while you are gracing us with your humour today.

The U.S. thermostat will remain at "warm" until I win the December playoff of our year-long forecast contest. I broke "warm" in the head-to-head finals. Currently, I'm leading by 114 points, which is quite a bit. After December 31st I'll release my hold on the thermostat.

Looking at the 00Z Euro - upper 70s for Houston on Christmas Day. No freezes Dallas to Houston next 10 days. GFS indicates no freeze through the first week of January (at least). Perfect!

I'm not seeing any clear signs of a pattern change that would bring Canadian-Arctic air down to Texas through at least the first week of January.

How gracious of you, sir.

Yes, we would like for you to relinquish your hold on the thermostat come January. At least give us a few weeks of "fun."

Meanwhile, I wouldn't bet a Kit Kat bar on next weekend's weather at this point other than to say it will be wet. Each run of the GFS and even the Euro have been all over the place. Very little consistency. I'll use your (wxman57) line and say we shouldn't buy into any model run until 72 hours out.

[JayDT]

12z gfs

Ok im liking this... Now if only we could move that heavier snow line about 30-40 miles to the west, that would be nice!

[JayDT]

So from the little bit i just saw, the Canadian model is showing some snow around here too?

[Brent]

12z CMC

[1900hurricane]

Guidance is really struggling with the evolution of the closed low, but 12Z ECMWF verbatim would bring quite a lot of rain.

[wxman57]

Ah, snow next weekend on the latest GFS. I believe it...

Euro has snow in the western Panhandle.

[Brent]

and the Euro..

[TeamPlayersBlue]

With the latest Euro run.... what does the precip look like and where. Thats a solid snowstorm. If it snows while im gone.....

[Ptarmigan]

Last few runs of the GFS are closer to what the Euro has been forecasting. Given the GFS' long-range performance over the past 2 months, I'd lean toward the Euro.

And he is still laughing at the forecast of snow....LOL

I'd love to see snow in Houston. There's nothing else good about winter. But we don't have a chance of any ice until perhaps mid January. I have full control of the thermostat this month...

You can't hog the termostat.

[Brent]

18z GFS even more aggressive with snow totals around DFW:

This run verbatim at DFW has temps near freezing at sunrise Sunday... and snow falls all day after that with temps down into the mid/upper 20s by afternoon...

Snow ends Sunday evening.

[Tireman4]

I swear I want this. I really do, but I am so pessimistic so far. Maybe the years of wanting are being clouded by Wxman 57...I do not know...maybe it is because my Cowboys stink this year...ughh...

[wxman57]

I swear I want this. I really do, but I am so pessimistic so far. Maybe the years of wanting are being clouded by Wxman 57...I do not know...maybe it is because my Cowboys stink this year...ughh...

If the Euro comes around to the GFS AND if they both are forecasting snow on Wednesday or Thursday THEN it might be somewhat believable.

[Brent]

I swear I want this. I really do, but I am so pessimistic so far. Maybe the years of wanting are being clouded by Wxman 57...I do not know...maybe it is because my Cowboys stink this year...ughh...

If the Euro comes around to the GFS AND if they both are forecasting snow on Wednesday or Thursday THEN it might be somewhat believable.

The Euro looked like a snowstorm for somebody with that look at 12z or am I wrong?

That said... I wanna see more consistency regardless to really believe this is possible.

[TheProfessor]

I like the 18z GFS and I hope it and the Euro can come to a similar agreement that shows snow. (and not be wrong lol)

[hriverajr]

I swear I want this. I really do, but I am so pessimistic so far. Maybe the years of wanting are being clouded by Wxman 57...I do not know...maybe it is because my Cowboys stink this year...ughh...

If the Euro comes around to the GFS AND if they both are forecasting snow on Wednesday or Thursday THEN it might be somewhat believable.

I would agree. I still think better chances are further west... All depends on the path of that low. It keeps changing run to run and model to model.

[Brent]

The GFS meteogram for DFW has 11 degrees...

[JayDT]

The end of the AFD from the Fort Worth NWS is pretty interesting actually. Well in my opinion anyway, lol.

[JayDT]

18z GFS even more aggressive with snow totals around DFW:

This run verbatim at DFW has temps near freezing at sunrise Sunday... and snow falls all day after that with temps down into the mid/upper 20s by afternoon...

Snow ends Sunday evening.

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis ... cus_31.png

I'm liking this trend! Hopefully its actually on to something though.

[Brent]

Steve McCauley has made a post:

Steve McCauley
38 mins · Combine, TX ·

The storm system we have been tracking across Russia for the past few days is now emerging from the coast and headed into the Bering Sea west of Alaska. As it moves east it will be encountering unusually warm waters, and with the bitterly cold temperatures just to the north, this large temperature contrast will set the stage for significant strengthening of this storm. It will eventually dive to the southeast and become a major winter storm bringing a variety of precipitation to the state of Texas next weekend. Ice and snow appear headed for west Texas while strong to severe thunderstorms may break out in our area and points south.

It is too early to tell if the precipitation will end before it gets cold enough to transition to winter precipitation in our area. Stay tuned...

[Ntxw]

If the Euro comes around to the GFS AND if they both are forecasting snow on Wednesday or Thursday THEN it might be somewhat believable.

I would agree. I still think better chances are further west... All depends on the path of that low. It keeps changing run to run and model to model.

There hasn't been much consistency on the path or amount of cold air at the surface run to run. We are fairly confident of a deep ULL passage though and that it will dig into Northern Mexico. Beyond that, really with cut off ULL's you won't have much of a good idea until 48 hours...even 24 hours if we're depending on cold air aloft.

There is a lot of cold air to tap into from NW Canada.