Texas Spring 2016

[KatDaddy]

The SPC has a large slight risk area across S, Central, E, and SE TX for this afternoon and tonight for thunderstorms ahead and along the front that will move across SE TX tonight dropping highs into the mid 60s and lows in the mid 40s through the weekend.

[wxman57]

If you're planting tomatoes, it's already too late to plant seeds. Tomatoes only set fruit when the nighttime lows are below about 72. Wait too long and you won't get much fruit. There's no more freeze risk this "winter". Maybe only a very slight risk up in Dallas - but you can always cover any tender plants in that case.

[gboudx]

I planted tomatoes plants about 3 weeks ago, so they're well established. Biggest concern is the spinach and lettuce, but I'll cover if necessary.

Here's an update from jeff:

A slight chance of a severe thunderstorms late this afternoon and evening.

A tale of two air masses over SE TX this morning…the result of a nearly stationary low level boundary…which extends from College Station to BUSH IAH to Lake Charles. North of this boundary dewpoints are in the mid to upper 50’s while south of the feature dewpoints are in the upper 60’s to lower 70’s. A much stronger cold front is currently moving through OK and will surge southward today arriving into SE TX late this afternoon. With surface heating today the air mass over SC and SE TX will become fairly unstable by mid to late afternoon with SBCAPE of 2000-3000 J/kg…locally higher near Matagorda Bay and cooling mid level temperatures as a short wave approaches in the sub0tropical flow aloft. Incoming front will yield strong surface convergence helping to break any remaining mid level capping that may be in place.

Mesoscale models are actually in fairly good agreement on several clusters of strong to severe thunderstorms developing along the southward surging cold front late this afternoon. These models also develop severe thunderstorms on the MX side of the Rio Grande which move ESE into SW TX and generally toward the coastal bend overnight as a defined MCS. With loss of heating this evening thunderstorm activity over SE TX moving southward from the north looks to gradually decrease, but much better defined development supported by short wave lift coming out of SC TX late tonight into early Saturday morning will need to be watched as a couple of the models want to bring a meso low type feature across our SW counties/Matagorda Bay during this period which would support an enhanced severe threat.

Main severe threats will be large hail and a few damaging wind gust.

Will also need to watch the old low level boundary laying across the region early this afternoon as heating increases instability which could in turn result in a few storms developing.

Saturday will be much colder, windy, and cloudy (at least into the early afternoon hours). Temperatures will struggle to get out of the mid 60’s under strong cold air advection. Winds of 15-25mph will be common. Skies clear Saturday night and winds decrease leading to good cooling with lows falling into the low to mid 40’s. May get into the upper 30’s over some of the normally cool locations Monday morning.

Strong return flow with strong south winds sets in on Tuesday ahead of the next trough/cold front combo expected on Thursday of next week with another round over showers and thunderstorms.

Hydro:

Flood waves continue to pass down area rivers with most forecast points having crested on the Sabine, Trinity and Brazos. Widespread and significant flooding continues on the lower Sabine basin with the river having spread across miles of marsh lands. The massive volume of water being brought down the river will keep flooding ongoing for the next 2-3 days in the City of Orange where some structures have been flooded since Tuesday. There is also some indications that due to the historic nature of this flood event that bridge crossings on the river are playing a part in how the flood wave has been dispersed across the low lands along the river. In many cases the flood has exceeded the base flood design of many of the bridges crossing the river resulting in large amounts of debris collecting against the upstream side bridge decks and impeding or in some cases diverting the flow. Many locations on the lower Sabine River have never experienced a flood of this magnitude in modern times.

Flooding will continue on the Trinity River at Liberty into next week as upstream flood waves from N TX are just now reaching Lake Livingston which is having to maintain high release rates.

On the Brazos River minor flooding in southern Fort Bend and Brazoria County will be decreasing as the flood wave moves toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Rainfall amounts today and tonight should average .5 – 1.0 inch across the region with the potential for any heavier isolated totals to be confined south of I-10. Generally this will not cause any additional river rises and current recessions should continue as forecast.

[jasons2k]

Back in the warm sector here just north of H-town. The sun is peeking out too and it's feeling muggy.

You can really see the main cold front barreling down on the visible satellite loops, too.

[Brent]

If you're planting tomatoes, it's already too late to plant seeds. Tomatoes only set fruit when the nighttime lows are below about 72. Wait too long and you won't get much fruit. There's no more freeze risk this "winter". Maybe only a very slight risk up in Dallas - but you can always cover any tender plants in that case.

I didn't even know about this because in Alabama we rarely had many nights where it failed to get below 72 unlike here.

Back to model runs... the 12z GFS still showing several more cold temperature scares through the end of March. The snow in Oklahoma next Friday has pretty much disappeared, but then there's another front on Easter. No prolonged heat to be found.

[gboudx]

DFW have a cap overhead? Storms should've been firing by now.

[Brent]

DFW have a cap overhead? Storms should've been firing by now.

Looks like the window is closing quickly to me. Some echoes from North Tarrant to McKinney is it I think.

From FWD about this weekend:

WINDS WILL BECOME LIGHT...ESPECIALLY OVER THE WESTERN HALF OF THE
REGION SATURDAY NIGHT AND OVER THE EASTERN HALF OF THE REGION
SUNDAY NIGHT. GOOD RADIATIONAL COOLING WILL ALLOW TEMPS TO FALL
INTO THE 30S AREA WIDE. THE COLDEST TEMPS WILL BE ACROSS WESTERN
AND NORTHERN ZONES SATURDAY NIGHT...AND THE EASTERN ZONES SUNDAY
NIGHT. SOME SPOTTY FREEZING TEMPERATURES ARE POSSIBLE IN THE USUAL
COLDER LOCATIONS...BUT FROST WILL BE POSSIBLE WHERE EVER TEMPS
DROP BELOW 37. FOR THOSE THAT HAVE ALREADY STARTED THEIR SPRING
GARDENS...THEY WILL WANT TO PROTECT COLD SENSITIVE PLANTS BY
COVERING THEM OR MOVING THEM INSIDE. TO PROTECT PLANTS FROM
FROST...JUST PUTTING SOMETHING IN BETWEEN THE PLANT AND THE
SKY.../LIKE A CLOTH SHEET/ KEEPS GROUND RADIATION ENERGY FROM
ESCAPING TO SPACE AND IS USUALLY ENOUGH TO PREVENT FROST DAMAGE.
WE WILL LIKELY ISSUE A FROST ADVISORY FOR PARTS OF THE CWA TOMORROW.

[Brent]

happy almost April! Entire week towards Easter and beyond looks largely below normal again

[weatherdude1108]

Got a nice thunderstorm a couple hours ago. No hail. 0.42 in the gauge. 58 degrees!

[StormChaser75]

Strong winds right now Power flickering .

[Brent]

47 and windy here... winter is back!

[TheProfessor]

47 and windy here... winter is back!

Winter? Psh if I wasn't sick I'd be wearing a shirt sleeve shirt and shorts

[Brent]

47 and windy here... winter is back!

Winter? Psh if I wasn't sick I'd be wearing a shirt sleeve shirt and shorts

Well... one of the highlights of "winter" here this year... Hard to believe 4 days ago it was nearly 90 degrees

oh and you're becoming a yankee...

[StormChaser75]

Storm still here power going crazy got around 50 mph winds probably 60 mph gusts. Still not over

[StormChaser75]

Storm seems to be almost over, got strong winds of about 50 mph with higher gusts, no hail, power for some reason still flickering few times ,probably because of the lightning I see periodically . Definitely was a wicked storm . The last time I can remember we got one this bad was in 2011 or 2012 if my memory serves me correctly.

[gpsnowman]

47 and windy here... winter is back!

Winter? Psh if I wasn't sick I'd be wearing a shirt sleeve shirt and shorts

Well... one of the highlights of "winter" here this year... Hard to believe 4 days ago it was nearly 90 degrees

oh and you're becoming a yankee...

I hope it is May before we see another 90. The air this morning is crisp and breezy. Feels fantastic. Yesterdays rain was a total dud for the DFW area. Guess it was just too cool for thunderstorms to form. Oh well, looks like we will have to wait until later in the week to see some rain.

[wxman57]

Terrible weather today. Only 59 deg, cloudy and windy this morning. No biking today. Glad I got in a fast 40 miles yesterday. GFS is backing off on next week's cold. That Oklahoma snow is now up in Nebraska - and those below-normal temps on March 31st are replaced by above-normal temps.

Heavy storms all around me yesterday but not here. Only .07" in SW Houston. Areas just east of me got nearly 3".

[weatherdude1108]

46 degrees here now with gusty winds. Nice!

Trying to salvage what little "Winter" we had this year.

[lrak]

Most of CC TX is W/O power or some power. I've never seen this before, I'm at work and we had to find plugs that work to fire up the computers. Some plugs have a little juice and the others are trickling out juice. My office is bright with all the lights on, yet I had to find a good plug with an extension cord to plug my pwr strip in so I could turn on my computer and its peripherals. My bosses office has no power

[Texas Snowman]

Terrible weather today. Only 59 deg, cloudy and windy this morning. No biking today. Glad I got in a fast 40 miles yesterday. GFS is backing off on next week's cold. That Oklahoma snow is now up in Nebraska - and those below-normal temps on March 31st are replaced by above-normal temps.

Heavy storms all around me yesterday but not here. Only .07" in SW Houston. Areas just east of me got nearly 3".

Euro touting one day, GFS flaunting the next.

You're doing more waffling than the short order cooks down at the Waffle House!