Texas Winter 2021-2022

[Yukon Cornelius]

Still hope for you Texas folk. The good news is that the pattern changed. As a CO resident, this pattern is perfect for us skiers. I havent had a chance to look at many analogs and come up with my biased opinion, but when i do, i will let you guys know, but winter will always show up at some point. It's possible during the transition out of La nina to El nino, which Ntx described in an earlier post.

Merry Christmas fellas!

You cheated. You had to move north in the mountains to see snow. That’s not the same as seeing it in Sugar Land lol

Well, this has been the least amount of snow in HISTORY, so dont feel too jealous. It's been greaat trying to understand the dynamics here in Denver. Understanding the best case scenario for snow, what the u[per levels look like, etc. Been a treat.

Typically they get high pressures rushing down the spine of the rockies and through orographic lift, snow bands form. Im further west and closer to the foothills, so i see more than downtown and much more than the airport.

It’s weird up here this season. We’ve only gotta a couple dustings outside of Westcliffe. We should be measuring snow in ft at this point. The warmth is also killing things.

[Cpv17]

Look at the trends from the Euro for next weekend. It went from much ado about nothing to -20s down the front range at 850mb. Surface high went from non-existent to trending upward. Only 1036mb right now but if it keeps trending up, it's a good air mass. Front range will be cold.

https://i.imgur.com/cTJl7EN.gif

I’ve noticed that the Euro is fairly conservative when it comes to forecasting strength of high pressures.

[orangeblood]

Fwiw, the CMC puts Texas and Louisiana in the deep freeze. I know…. it’s the CMC…

It should be the coldest surge of the season so far (not saying much since many have barely had a freeze if at all). It'll actually feel like winter for a change.

CMC got a recent upgrade, while I'm skeptical of the very low numbers it's showing for New Year's weekend, we can test it out.

The Canadian was consistently too cold with last February's big freeze.

The CMC was the best/most consistent model for Feb Arctic Outbreak…it latched on early and never wavered much if any. It’s forecast performance from 7-10 days out was remarkable

[TropicalTundra]

It should be the coldest surge of the season so far (not saying much since many have barely had a freeze if at all). It'll actually feel like winter for a change.

CMC got a recent upgrade, while I'm skeptical of the very low numbers it's showing for New Year's weekend, we can test it out.

The Canadian was consistently too cold with last February's big freeze.

The CMC was the best/most consistent model for Feb Arctic Outbreak…it latched on early and never wavered much if any. It’s forecast performance from 7-10 days out was remarkable

It pretty much locked on the storm once it got in range. The temps were super accurate even with the CMC’s cold bias. Funnily enough the GFS and ICON were predicting negative temps as far south as Austin even though they generally are warm bias models

[Cerlin]

I mean even if ensemble temperatures are around 36°, that’s still half of them colder and half of them warmer, and given the Euro’s consistent warm bias, I’d argue that a 50/50 shot like that would go in our favor.

[Brent]

I mean even if ensemble temperatures are around 36°, that’s still half of them colder and half of them warmer, and given the Euro’s consistent warm bias, I’d argue that a 50/50 shot like that would go in our favor.

Yeah and I still have clear memories of the Euro being awful with February until the last minute I think Dallas was already below freezing and it was still saying it would warmup

[Cerlin]

I mean even if ensemble temperatures are around 36°, that’s still half of them colder and half of them warmer, and given the Euro’s consistent warm bias, I’d argue that a 50/50 shot like that would go in our favor.

Yeah and I still have clear memories of the Euro being awful with February until the last minute I think Dallas was already below freezing and it was still saying it would warmup

Yeah I’m not sure what dynamics equations are programmed into that model but they have a knack for underestimating large scale cold outbreaks. IIRC, the Euro did just fine with moisture availability and where the precipitation would be, it just fumbled the bag with the temperature output.

[Golf7270]

Models and ensembles are a stark difference than what we have seen. -wpo should unleash the cold from Siberia into nw Canada and the relaxing of pna should allow the cold to travel further south.

[Brent]

I mean even if ensemble temperatures are around 36°, that’s still half of them colder and half of them warmer, and given the Euro’s consistent warm bias, I’d argue that a 50/50 shot like that would go in our favor.

Yeah and I still have clear memories of the Euro being awful with February until the last minute I think Dallas was already below freezing and it was still saying it would warmup

Yeah I’m not sure what dynamics equations are programmed into that model but they have a knack for underestimating large scale cold outbreaks. IIRC, the Euro did just fine with moisture availability and where the precipitation would be, it just fumbled the bag with the temperature output.

Another thing if this is the usual shallow arctic air the globals are gonna struggle anyway. Always too slow with the progress

[Cerlin]

The 12z EPS suite signals how these ensembles are slowly shifting.




It looks like about a quarter of them have some kind of snow event for North Texas through the first 10 days of January, and about half of them have decent snow for Oklahoma. Compare that with the model output a few days ago and it’s promising. Nowhere near definitive but the mean was father south from the 0z mean. Models are still in that trial and error phase but there are plenty of signals in the teleconnections for a pattern change and I think the models are just now starting to adjust.

And the PNA is forecasted to go back to neutral. So, while we’re not seeing the major negative NAO and EPO predictions that we did a week ago or so, the PNA headed back to neutral will help us a lot. It is likely that there will be plenty of cold air over Canada that can divert down towards the plains, we just need some mechanism to trigger that, like the short waves shown in the global models recently. Charlie Brown has to make contact with the football at some point.

[Snowman67]

12Z GFS has a brief hard freeze for D-FW on the 7th and maybe a light freeze for Houston on the 8th. Nothing more. Still too far out to have any confidence in any run at all. Even 7 days before last February's major cold, the European model only forecast one day near freezing for the low in Houston. I kept all the model forecasts that I plotted in a spreadsheet.

So you're saying it could be a lot colder than depicted

[Ntxw]

Yeah and I still have clear memories of the Euro being awful with February until the last minute I think Dallas was already below freezing and it was still saying it would warmup

Yeah I’m not sure what dynamics equations are programmed into that model but they have a knack for underestimating large scale cold outbreaks. IIRC, the Euro did just fine with moisture availability and where the precipitation would be, it just fumbled the bag with the temperature output.

Another thing if this is the usual shallow arctic air the globals are gonna struggle anyway. Always too slow with the progress

Euro is often the best upper level model. Its skill scores are quite high. However there is sometimes a disconnect between the upper levels and the surface especially when you're talking about cold, dense air. E-W flow aloft did nothing to stop Feb. At 500mb there was nothing extraordinary about the heights or even surface high at that time (upper 1040s). We've seen more direct favorable 500mb flows with lesser cold blasts. That's where it failed imho it was too dependent on the upper flow. Sometimes you get so complicated and smart you can miss the most basic fundamentals.

[Yukon Cornelius]

I mean even if ensemble temperatures are around 36°, that’s still half of them colder and half of them warmer, and given the Euro’s consistent warm bias, I’d argue that a 50/50 shot like that would go in our favor.

Yeah and I still have clear memories of the Euro being awful with February until the last minute I think Dallas was already below freezing and it was still saying it would warmup

100%. We were at 0 and the euro was saying it was like 35 or something way off.

[Golf7270]

Ntxw, are we getting into a pattern change more favorable for cold or is it another head fake?

[rwfromkansas]

It’s been whiplash for the last week when I check this page. I’m still extremely skeptical.

Will reserve judgment for a few more days before getting more interested. We need cold, but we also need a storm. Getting both is hard here.

[wxman57]

18Z GFS says what cold air? Low 80s up to the OK border Jan 8-9 where it had mid 20s before. My kind of run... I really don't see a big pattern change yet. Models still can't forecast this progressive flow pattern. Beware trusting the models beyond 5-7 days.

[TropicalTundra]

18Z GFS says what cold air? Low 80s up to the OK border Jan 8-9 where it had mid 20s before. My kind of run... I really don't see a big pattern change yet. Models still can't forecast this progressive flow pattern. Beware trusting the models beyond 5-7 days.

You say “Beware of anything 5-7 days out” but you mention 70s and 80s 2 weeks ahead on the GFS? Hmm. Sorry Mr. 57. The GFS is changing tides. No more 90s. You’ve had your fair share of heat since early March of this year. The arctic air’s coming, and it’s coming FAST.

[cheezyWXguy]

18Z GFS says what cold air? Low 80s up to the OK border Jan 8-9 where it had mid 20s before. My kind of run... I really don't see a big pattern change yet. Models still can't forecast this progressive flow pattern. Beware trusting the models beyond 5-7 days.

You say “Beware of anything 5-7 days out” but you mention 70s and 80s 2 weeks ahead on the GFS? Hmm. Sorry Mr. 57. The GFS is changing tides. No more 90s. You’ve had your fair share of heat since early March of this year. The arctic air’s coming, and it’s coming FAST.

I know this comment is made tongue in cheek, but in case it’s not clear to others, he’s remarking on the lack of consistency beyond 5-7 days, not stating that the gfs’s warm solution is any more plausible than its cold one. Too much uncertainty in the long run to make a call at this point, although it is nice to see the ensembles trying as well.

[cheezyWXguy]

On the note of the 18z gfs, is it really plausible to see such a strong block over both Greenland and Alaska, and a high encompassing the entire southern US at the end of the run? I would think that kind of pattern would lend itself to a pretty big trough in the central US

[gboudx]

DFW NWS showing highs in mid 40s next Sunday. That’s promising. Maybe we can stop using the A/C by then.

Picked up the lawn Christmas stuff today to cut the grass and weeds. It’s like a bad dream.