Texas Spring 2024

[wxman57]

Reminds me of February 1986 (The Perfect Winter) and 1996. Both years had 90s here in Houston in February. Sunny and warm most of the winter of '85-'86. Went swimming in February that year. Checking back, Feb '86 was El Nino and '96 was weak La Nina. Other factors were obviously in place.

IAH Climo
http://wxman57.com/climo/iah/February.html

[ElectricStorm]

And there's the medium range downtrend for Sunday, like clockwork. Doubt we end up with anything

[snownado]

It’s funny how people keep piling into Texas like the state is still going to be inhabitable a generation or two from now, with this earlier and earlier heat and shrinking rainfall totals. 94 degrees in February, absolutely disgusting.

I mean, Dallas hit 96*F in February 1904.

And yet, way more of us are here 120 years later still living our best, prosperous lives...

BTW, 94*F is no more disgusting for Texas in February than below zero temps, which we also had around this time a mere 3 years ago.

[jasons2k]

89 here today and it’s only February.

As for spring into summer, we need to get prepared for a mostly dry, cap-filled spring. Not just because it’s hot today, but because the way the recent and forecast trends are unfolding. We are drying out fast and the dryness of Northern Mexico & SW Texas is going to feedback into the cap. We’ll still get some cold fronts but look for them to be mostly dry and underperforming with rain totals.

[Anti-freeze]

Man, those panhandle fires are bad. Wildfires are a fact of life for half the state, but these are particularly bad. Allegedly the Smokehouse Creek fire is already the 5th largest in state history, and started less than 32 hours ago. Several towns under mandatory evacuation orders, and I read that Canadian has been told to evacuate to a school in the center of town, since several roads are closed off and the other ways out are also threatened. Confirmed losses of homes in several locations across the northern panhandle and into western OK. Winds should decrease overnite to less than 10 mph tomorrow, but ramp back up on Thursday. Come down again Friday, then are strong again through at least Monday.

Amidst all the bad news, I did get a momentary chuckle at one of the names: The Windy Deuce Fire
(Beavis and Butthead giggle jpg)

[snownado]

While the forecast high in the upper 80s busted yesterday due to the extensive cloud cover & higher dewpoints (only made it to 79*F), thus the record high of 85*F was not broken after all, DFW did tie the record maximum low of 66*F which was last set in 2011.

[wxman57]

Cold front just moved through. Temp down to the mid-60s. Only upper 50s for tomorrow's high, but near 70 Friday and near 80 over the weekend. It's been fairly dry for the past couple of weeks, but nearly a foot of rain so far this year. Winter has definitely ended for SE Texas.

[HockeyTx82]

Happy Meteorological Spring

[Brent]

7th warmest December and 3rd warmest February here. Yikes yeah I never want to see a winter like that again

The only small saving grace was January was 14th coldest

Hopefully spring is wet and summer isn't completely awful(I've quit believing it won't be hot as you know what)

[Lagreeneyes03]

Severe season seems like it won't be very active in North Texas, however when there are storms, (break in cap) they will be notable.

[ElectricStorm]

Severe season seems like it won't be very active in North Texas, however when there are storms, (break in cap) they will be notable.

We'll see. This year sets up pretty nicely for a decently active April and May (and maybe even June but I'm skeptical on that one) with the dying El Niño.

Convective Chronicles has a good video explaining it in much more detail.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NtfLy7atk_0

I think we'll see a more active Plains season compared to the last few years (which to be fair is a pretty low bar outside of the few big central OK days last year)

Until early to mid-April though I think it'll be pretty quiet overall

[jasons2k]

Severe season seems like it won't be very active in North Texas, however when there are storms, (break in cap) they will be notable.

We'll see. This year sets up pretty nicely for a decently active April and May (and maybe even June but I'm skeptical on that one) with the dying El Niño.

Convective Chronicles has a good video explaining it in much more detail.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NtfLy7atk_0

I think we'll see a more active Plains season compared to the last few years (which to be fair is a pretty low bar outside of the few big central OK days last year)

Until early to mid-April though I think it'll be pretty quiet overall

This is one of my concerns. We’re on pause down here in SE Texas, and by the time things start happening again, the action will be north and west of here.

Seems to be the “new normal” with our spring weather. Our severe storm season is more from December - February now and then the cap takes over until we transition to a truly tropical airmass in summer. Then it’s ridge watching. Wash, rinse, repeat

[ElectricStorm]

Could see an outside chance for a few strong/severe storms on Monday 3/4 around the Ark-La-Tex region and perhaps SE OK. Shear looks terrible but instability looks ok. Won't be much but could be a marginal/slight risk day.

[opticsguy]

Took a chance and planted half my tomatoes yesterday under row covers (McKinney). A couple of volunteer plants from last December and some from seeds that grew much faster than I thought under LEDs. Need to get through the next two weeks....

I remember a 100F day in Dallas in March 1989. IIRC, it was a pretty wet spring with some good storms (May 5th) and a record cold morning in mid June.

[snownado]

Took a chance and planted half my tomatoes yesterday under row covers (McKinney). A couple of volunteer plants from last December and some from seeds that grew much faster than I thought under LEDs. Need to get through the next two weeks....

I remember a 100F day in Dallas in March 1989. IIRC, it was a pretty wet spring with some good storms (May 5th) and a record cold morning in mid June.

Brave man, especially given the average last day of a freeze isn't for another 1.5 weeks...

[snownado]

Severe season seems like it won't be very active in North Texas, however when there are storms, (break in cap) they will be notable.

So basically, the same as every severe weather season...

[opticsguy]

Took a chance and planted half my tomatoes yesterday under row covers (McKinney). A couple of volunteer plants from last December and some from seeds that grew much faster than I thought under LEDs. Need to get through the next two weeks....

I remember a 100F day in Dallas in March 1989. IIRC, it was a pretty wet spring with some good storms (May 5th) and a record cold morning in mid June.

Brave man, especially given the average last day of a freeze isn't for another 1.5 weeks...

They're small enough to dig up if I have to. I did that last year before the late freeze. The ones I kept in the ground didn't freeze but they went into shock and didn't grow for two weeks. The 0Z Euro has upper 30s next Sunday, the 10th.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

Tropical Tidbits now has the Euro AI model. Interested to see the differences in the normal model.

[Ntxw]

Tropical Tidbits now has the Euro AI model. Interested to see the differences in the normal model.

This is neat! While I think it is primitive, it has a lot of potential as future forecasting. One thing models don't do well is incorporate analogs, and the geographic tendencies well which AI can fix. One day we all can run our own generated models with our own set of criteria inputs, wow factor.

[South Texas Storms]

Long-range GFS sure does look nice. Cut-off low over Mexico for days which brings us several rounds of showers and thunderstorms. Rainfall over the next few months is going to be really important. The more we get the less hot of a summer we should see.