Texas Winter 2016-2017

[Texas Snow]

Nice little hole over the metroplex on the 18Z. The past several runs keep breaking the snow apart into two lobes with the DFW area just getting a little of both it seems.

[gpsnowman]

Seems a bit less for the southeast as well. Goodness, who knows anymore. I just want to see some snow gosh darnit.

[Brent]

:uarrow: Seems a bit less for the southeast as well. Goodness, who knows anymore. I just want to see some snow gosh darnit.

Yeah the trend today has been lower totals almost everywhere but ugh I just want a half inch lol. The bar is so pathetically low come on

[Ntxw]

:uarrow: Seems a bit less for the southeast as well. Goodness, who knows anymore. I just want to see some snow gosh darnit.

Yeah the trend today has been lower totals almost everywhere but ugh I just want a half inch lol. The bar is so pathetically low come on

Heck just having some big fluffy flakes fall for an hour or two is enough. Trend has been to the euro

[Snowman67]

In contrast to Houston, the 6pm Friday GFS sounding for the Dallas-Ft. Worth area indicates a saturated atmosphere up to 500mb (18,000 ft) and the entire column (red line) colder than 0C (32F). If it's correct, then any precip falling on Friday would be snow.

http://www.twisterdata.com/data/tmp/scr ... 00W_SM.png

For Austin (Portastorm), that same GFS indicates temperatures around 47-48 degrees at 850mb (5000ft) during the precip. As with Houston, there's a very shallow sub-freezing layer (around 2000 ft up) over Austin on Friday, but the warm nose lies above. This means at most you'd see a few sleet pellets as the precip ends. Of course, all this assumes that the GFS is correctly forecasting upper-air temps. Note that the latest NAM has a vertical profile that's a few degrees (2-4F) warmer than the GFS during the precip.

http://www.twisterdata.com/data/tmp/scr ... 00W_SM.png

See what you can do about cooling the entire column down below freezing for SE Texas At least for Tomball- pretty please?

[Stormnut]

The models have trended a degree or two colder each of the last 5 model runs.. They now have us right at or just below freezing a little before precip ends here in Baton Rouge.. Yesterday models were showing upper 30's

[gpsnowman]

A few big flakes would be so pretty to witness for an hour or two Ntwx, you are correct. And I will stay up for any of it. To quote Yoda: "A freak for snow, I am. Degobah, never fluffy white flakes. Degobah, never. Only Hoth. Just ask Luke." Ok, he never said that.

[SnowintheFalls]

Outside of the Panhandle and the NE region of the state, light snow primarily hovers along a line over the Red River. Seems to be the pattern from the last few runs of the GFS.

[OKMet83]

Not to overlook Thu/Fri but some SERIOUS cold showing up late next week across SRN Canada on the 18z GFS...

[ronyan]

Not to overlook Thu/Fri but some SERIOUS cold showing up late next week across SRN Canada on the 18z GFS...

Yes, highs in the -20s in 10 days across parts of MN and ND.

[Ralph's Weather]

I am happy that it appears that this looks like an all snow event though around 800mb it is close so may have to worry about some sleet mixing in and taking 2" of snow and making it .5" of mix south of I-20.

[bubba hotep]

It looks like the best bet is N of I20 where temp profiles look better, as wxman57 pointed out. Get some mesoscale forcing and maybe someone can eek out a car topper or maybe even an inch.

[Snowman67]

From HGX Afternoon discussion:

As temperatures continue
to fall Friday evening, forecast soundings indicate that areas
north of a Caldwell to Livingston line may see a brief mix of
light rain and sleet Friday evening given a shallow saturated
freezing layer around 750 MB, with a warm nose only 2-3 degrees
warmer than surface temperatures and another saturated freezing
layer from 950 through about 875 MB. Lapse rates within this lower
saturated layer may not be quite strong enough to produce sleet,
resulting moreso in freezing drizzle more than anything. As of
now, surface temperatures during this time are expected to be in
the mid to upper 30s and no impacts from this are anticipated...
but adjustments to this portion of the forecast are likely.

[Texas Snow]

AFDFWD is fascinating. I wish I knew how to look into all of these details and features:

"Thursday is when the real fun begins as models have come into a
bit better agreement with the positioning of a few synoptic
features. The first will be the surface low/trough to the north.
The past several runs of the GFS have been quite bullish with very
deep cyclogenesis across the region, while the ECMWF and Canadian
have been a bit more subtle. Interestingly enough the ECMWF and
GFS appear to have very similar solution with regards to the
surface low diving southward and opening up as a slightly broad
trough. While this occurs, both GFS, ECMWF, and NAM low level RH
progs show a rapid increase in 850-700mb RH along the north side
of the low level thermal gradient. This suggests that the models
are attempting to simulate some sort of low level frontogenesis.
While model QPF/PoP remains scant, we will have to keep an eye on
this, as there may be a potential (though it remains low) for some
elevated convection to develop. For now, I`ll just increase cloud
cover and have silent 15 PoPs along the Red River, but again---we
will have to keep close tabs on this.

Temperatures on Thursday will tumble rapidly through the day as
the cold front (the other synoptic feature), attendant to the
aformentioned low, barrels southward through North and Central TX.
I made some noteworthy adjustments downward to Max T grids on
Thursday as the arctic airmass plunges southward. With the cold
air in place and models still hinting at some FGEN around
700-850mb, I went ahead and nudged the chance for light winter
precipitation upwards along the Red River. Again, there`s a high
degree of uncertainty both in time and space, but there does
appear that there is a risk for some banded precipitation,
somewhere near the Red River, and the GFS is very aggressive with
its` QPF/PoP forecast. The ECMWF/Canadian on the other hand are a
little less bullish and draw in a great deal of dry air from the
north at the surface which would support mainly flurries or
drizzle. If the GFS starts to trend more towards the
ECMWF/Canadian, it`ll be more likely that flurries/drizzle are the
main p-type. Further south, across Central TX, models do suggest
that low level flow will be southwesterly which should favor
warming conditions and high temperatures across far Central TX may
climb into the upper 50s and low 60s. It`s possible that this
warming creates a strong baroclinic zone and could further
reinforce any frontogenetic circulation which could spell more in
the way of precipitation to the north. Right now, confidence in
coarser models resolving this process is low and I`ll stick with a
more conservative forecast which will advertise very light
precipitation across areas along and northeast/east of a Graham to
DFW to Rockdale line. A good majority of this area may see some
light freezing drizzle or light snow, with mainly a light cold
rain for far eastern and southeastern zones.

Friday Night into Saturday becomes even more difficult as the
magnitude of dry air advection will play a role in the cessation
of precipitation. Again, the ECMWF and Canadian are the aggressors
and suggest that a large amount of dry air will sweep southward.
The GFS on the other hand lingers a large quality of low level
moisture around. All models advertise that a large trough will
slide southward during this time. If the lift associated with the
upper trough is juxtaposed with enough lingering moisture, it`s
quite conceivable that an additional window of light wintry
precipitation/drizzle occurs across eastern and southern zones.
For consistency sake, I`ll hedge towards a drier solution with
precip ending before around 06 UTC Saturday."

[Ntxw]

They are basically hinting that some guidance are showing some weak lift with a boundary. Bubba hotep has mentioned mesoscale features always a tough thing to forecast.

Feb 2014 I remember a weak system deprived of moisture and many promets showed no moisture, but it was cold enough the profiles were extremely efficient at making dendrites that it snowed anyway which we here on forums discussed the day before

[bubba hotep]

AFDFWD is fascinating. I wish I knew how to look into all of these details and features.

That is a great AFD, FWD has been cranking out great discussions since I showed up in DFW (totally unrelated!) It's good to see them keep the high level discussions even after losing the King of the AFD to Arkansas. It would've been easy to mail it in with a low chance of winter weather late week but check back for details.

[Texas Snow]

Oh how I miss Dennis Cavanaugh. Seems like the office learned a lot from him and trying to keep up to the bar he raised.

I get what they are saying, I just wish I had enough skills to look at the detail they do. Maybe work a night shift with them Thursday night? Heck, I'd even pay to do it.

[wxman57]

In contrast to Houston, the 6pm Friday GFS sounding for the Dallas-Ft. Worth area indicates a saturated atmosphere up to 500mb (18,000 ft) and the entire column (red line) colder than 0C (32F). If it's correct, then any precip falling on Friday would be snow.

http://www.twisterdata.com/data/tmp/scr ... 00W_SM.png

For Austin (Portastorm), that same GFS indicates temperatures around 47-48 degrees at 850mb (5000ft) during the precip. As with Houston, there's a very shallow sub-freezing layer (around 2000 ft up) over Austin on Friday, but the warm nose lies above. This means at most you'd see a few sleet pellets as the precip ends. Of course, all this assumes that the GFS is correctly forecasting upper-air temps. Note that the latest NAM has a vertical profile that's a few degrees (2-4F) warmer than the GFS during the precip.

http://www.twisterdata.com/data/tmp/scr ... 00W_SM.png

See what you can do about cooling the entire column down below freezing for SE Texas At least for Tomball- pretty please?

I don't do cool-downs, I do warm-ups. If you want, I can stop all the cold fronts from reaching Texas this winter and heat us up into the 80s and 90s so you won't think about snow.

[Golf7070]

This message is for ntxw but ANYONE can answer this. Got a question. It looks like we fixing to warm up again after sunday. How long u think this warmup will last? Also, do u still think the mjo wont make it to the colder phases this winter? Reason i ask this is because im trying to find a reason to stay optimistic rest of winter before i throw in the towel. Not sure what kind of setup we want to see. I cant get a clear answer on that lol. Last thing is i noticed the warmer water in the 1+2 region of pacific. Does that have any implications for the winter moving forward? Just curious. Thsnks kevin

[gboudx]

This message is for ntxw. Got a question. It looks like we fixing to warm up again after sunday. How long u think this warmup will last? Also, do u still think the mjo wont make it to the colder phases this winter? Reason i ask this is because im trying to find a reason to stay optimistic rest of winter before i throw in the towel. Not sure what kind of setup we want to see. I cant get a clear answer on that lol

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