Texas Summer 2018

[weatherdude1108]

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio TX
245 PM CDT Tue Aug 7 2018

.SHORT TERM (Tonight through Wednesday Night)...
Upper air analysis this morning showed the sub-tropical ridge over
Texas with a trough over the northern and central plains. At the
surface, high pressure was centered to the east and winds across our
CWA were from the south to southeast. We don`t expect much change
in the pattern during the short term period. Isolated showers and
thunderstorms will develop along the seabreeze Wednesday afternoon
and move inland across the coastal plains. The nighttime periods will
be dry with mostly cloudy skies across the southern part of the CWA.
Temperatures will be near to slightly above normal.

&&

.LONG TERM (Thursday through Tuesday)...
The upper level trough in the central plains will dig southward as it
moves to the east. Beneath this trough a frontal boundary will move
southward into North Texas. This will be the beginning of a possible
wet period. The upper trough will continue digging south and westward
through the end of the week. Rain chances will begin across the north
Thursday and spread southward. Models show the upper pattern becoming
stagnant over the weekend keeping things unsettled. At the same time,
PW will increase to 1.5 to 2.0 inches. This will increase POPs even
more Sunday and Monday. Currently the highest POPs look to be across
the western half of our CWA and this is where the best moisture will
be. If this solution is correct, heavy rain will be possible. This
model run shows the highest rainfall totals north and west of our
CWA, but small changes could bring the heavier rain to our northern
and western areas.

[bubba hotep]

Looks like the I-30 corridor will be the big winner with this rain event:

Looks pretty close to a blend of the GEFS and Euro EPS, the 12z Euro Op looks like a dry outlier for the DFW area. As someone has already mentioned, the Euro seems to be struggling with precipitation placement beyond D5.

[rwfromkansas]

I am starting to believe in later this week...

I do wish the low next week would push more east though. South TX needs it, but they had more earlier in summer. Much of the area around Houston isn't even in the abnormally dry stage. But, the areas just west of there on up to DFW are the ones that really need it, and some of those people will miss out on this rain unfortunately. I have only seen 1.54 inches of rain since the end of May, and all but .20 of that was in June.

[starsfan65]

I am starting to believe in later this week...

I do wish the low next week would push more east though. South TX needs it, but they had more earlier in summer. Much of the area around Houston isn't even in the abnormally dry stage. But, the areas just west of there on up to DFW are the ones that really need it, and some of those people will miss out on this rain unfortunately. I have only seen 1.54 inches of rain since the end of May, and all but .20 of that was in June.

We need the rain badly!!

[Haris]

18z GFS is much much better with a low in SW TX....

[TheProfessor]

Well everyone I fly back to Ohio this Saturday. I have learned a lot at the NWS this Summer. But probably the biggest thing is how team oriented it is. AFDs are double checked by multiple forecasters before they go out, it's easy to check to see if you're close in thought with another office. it also really helps to see that everyone there is human. They aren't robots and sometimes they will make a mistake, but they have our best interests in mind(and they love the weather just as much or more as us lol). Anyways, even though the Summer was pretty quiet in North Texas there was still a lot for me to learn and it was a valuable experience that I will use going forward.

[South Texas Storms]

Well everyone I fly back to Ohio this Saturday. I have learned a lot at the NWS this Summer. But probably the biggest thing is how team oriented it is. AFDs are double checked by multiple forecasters before they go out, it's easy to check to see if you're close in thought with another office. it also really helps to see that everyone there is human. They aren't robots and sometimes they will make a mistake, but they have our best interests in mind(and they love the weather just as much or more as us lol). Anyways, even though the Summer was pretty quiet in North Texas there was still a lot for me to learn and it was a valuable experience that I will use going forward.

Congrats on finishing your internship! It's awesome that you were able to do that before graduation. I fully support internships and making connections with weather colleagues as I'm now working at the company I interned at during college. It definitely helps when job searching.

[Cpv17]

Look at all the rain in Mexico. Is this normal? I don’t recall it being normal lol

[srainhoutx]

I wanted to briefly touch on some indications starting to show up in our reliable ensembles regarding the MJO as we March steadily closer to peak Hurricane Season that thankfully thus far has been inactive with the 4th named storm way out in the Atlantic named today. The Global Ensembles are hinting that a very favorable pattern may develop as August ends and September begins. Historically when the MJO enters Phase 2/3, we've seen some memorable Hurricanes such as Harvey last year, Hurricane Ike back in 2008 among others. The Updated 40 Day Outlook has been sniffing this potential Hemispheric Pattern possibly developing for several day and the ECMWF Ensembles flipped to agree with the American Ensembles today. Let this serve as a reminder that even in an inactive Hurricane Season, it only takes one to make it a bad one.

[bubba hotep]

Models earlier today were pretty blah on convection in OK this evening but we've got storms pushing south towards the Red River.



The 00z FWD sounding shows some decent CAPE and basically no CIN but there is a pretty stout dry layer.

[Brent]

3km NAM looks amazing for DFW tomorrow afternoon and especially Thursday morning and it has zero tonight upstream

[Haris]

!!

Where is the chatter?

[Brent]

!!

Where is the chatter?

Poor Fort Worth Okay so amazing for the Dallas side...

[rwfromkansas]

!!

Where is the chatter?

The NAM wants me to bang my head on a wall. Tarrant gets nothing...lol.

[JDawg512]

As I get ready for bed, I can't help but notice the loud chorus of frogs and roads outside, a good indication that rain is just a couple of days away. They have been an accurate natural indicator and every time this year that they start their calls, rain has fallen a few days later. Finally some action around the corner!

[weatherdude1108]

Looks like this discussion takes most of the energy north of here towards Dallas. Ugh. :/

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio TX
423 AM CDT Wed Aug 8 2018

.SHORT TERM (Today through Thursday)...
Rapid refresh models agree with the coarser scale 00Z runs that keep
only some isolated convection over the Coastal Prairies today. High
pressure aloft will keep the area mostly dry in the short-term with
persistence trends suggesting temps on the warm side of guidances
with another near 100 degree day in urban parts of Austin and San
Antonio.

High Temperatures should not deviate much Thursday for most of the
area, although northern counties may see some extra moisture and
instability. Thunderstorm outflows from North TX may spread far
enough south to bring moisture convergence to northern counties.
Meanwhile eastern counties should continue to benefit from onshore
flow and moisture convergence which is similar to what has already
been happening the past few days.

&&

.LONG TERM (Thursday Night through Tuesday)...
Thursday night into Friday the core pattern of NW flow aloft with an
embedded shortwave rests just upstream from Central TX and the Hill
Country. Expect with Thursday highs in the upper 90s, that some
outflow based propagation should carry a few organized storm
clusters into the area which could extend into the night into Friday.
MCV activity is going to be possible and thus the pinpointing of
best rain chances remains up in the air.

The coarser medium range models have trouble propagating the mid
level instability areas southward from North TX, which may result
from upstream instability that comes in stronger and through a deeper
layer from the Panhandle into NW TX. Thus the late Friday into
Saturday forecast is in low confidence, and the PoPs in this time
frame is scaled back from earlier projections. While the CMC
continues propagating convection further into South Central TX over
the weekend, the ECM/GFS solutions have trended toward increasing
strength from a mid-level ridge axis extending from South TX across
the northern Gulf coast to Florida.

Along with PoPs, higher QPF totals for the extended period from the
preferred solutions have regressed northward and further emphasized
highest rain potential over NW TX with a brief mid-to-upper level low
deepening over NW TX Sunday and lifting back north across the
Panhandle Monday. Mesoscale perturbations are capable of corrupting
this pattern but the compactness from H5 to H3 level low has us
sticking to the deterministic solutions until or unless more
mesoscale/CAMs solutions can challenge this trend as time draws
nearer. Nevertheless the pattern is one to watch given a fairly vague
transition zone between the unstable region and the stable one,
especially on Saturday where mesoscale processes could be capable
corrupting the broader synoptic pattern.

Given our more conservative nudge Friday night and beyond in regards
to rain chances, daytime temp trends are nudged upward as well
mainly for southern counties early next week.

[starsfan65]

Pretty quiet in here!!

[Brent]

I'm waiting for all this rain

[bubba hotep]

Looks like the outflow will force storms south of DFW after skipping through dry. So now we wait and see if there will be any tonight.

[Haris]

I was pondering about whether this could happen again!? Last September , the models had the heaviest rains from a trough W and N of Austin w/ a sharp gradient .

But a MCV traveled further E than expected and eroded the ridge over the gulf allowing as you see above , the 1/2" - 1" forecast becoming 2-5"/ opinions anyone???

And yes thats my profile