Texas Winter 2024-2025

[HockeyTx82]

Any way you could accurately pinpoint where the two tiny snowflakes will fall? I might have to do some chasing.

Go to the intersection of Forest Ave and E. Lancaster in SE Ft. Worth. It's near where my father's house was when I was going to college in the 1970s. One will fall there. Another could be close to DFW airport.

Well the Lancaster area of Ft. Worth is pretty rough nowadays so I will choose the airport. We can officially get a trace that way.

And the record will show that it snowed on this day, even though it was a simple single Snowflake and the rest of the Metroplex was left barren........

[Kirby68]

The goal post moving on this thread is something else…..the entire discussion last week was which model picked up on the Arctic Outbreak in the longer range sooner than the others, 7-10 days out. It was never about the 3-5 day range. The GFS was last to see it by far and that was our entire point about it being a poor performer outside of 6-7 plus days. It almost always place catch up. It’s due to its well documented low resolution outside of 7 days, it’s usually always late to the party and it was no different this time around. It had a high of 50F at DFW from 8 days out for this Thursday, Euro had 28F. NWS office currently has a forecast high of 32F. Pretty clear which one will be more accurate from that range and picked up on the pattern change way before the other, regardless of whether it “warms” a little from where it was in long range.
The GFS is a decent model from 4-5 days out but outside of that it doesn’t perform as well compared to the Euro and even CMC during Arctic Outbreaks. The skill scores in the 7–10 day range and even the physics of the model bear this out, I’m not just making this up out of thin air.

Not really interested in the nuances of a few degrees here or there in the 3-5 day range, all globals get fairly accurate and converge at that range. My comments are strictly for the medium to longer range and stand by them regarding the GFS. Haven’t seen much to change my mind this time around either, it was lost until just a couple of days ago

I’m not a Met, just an avid reader of this forum for a really long time, but I agree with you. GFS 5+ days out seems to be the one that’s been out to lunch the most.

[Wthrfan]

Wow the extreme cold watch for OKC mentions 25 below zero wind chills

I'm not sure the snow can overwhelm that

Winter Storm Watch for 3-8 inches of snow a tenth of an inch of ice and 35 mph winds here

I like the cold but the wind is for the birds!

[Brent]

Wow the extreme cold watch for OKC mentions 25 below zero wind chills

I'm not sure the snow can overwhelm that

Winter Storm Watch for 3-8 inches of snow a tenth of an inch of ice and 35 mph winds here

I like the cold but the wind is for the birds!

Yeah that was the thing I liked about January so much... We had no wind

Unfortunately I don't think we're gonna be as lucky Tuesday

At this point I'm like go big or go home though. A few inches isn't gonna be a story here with -20 wind chills

[Stratton23]

interesting that models agree on a coastal low developing behind the arctic front, but things get tricky, GFS/ Euro keep things all liquid for the texas coast in the upper 30’s to around 40 degrees as the low forms off brownsville, CMC has a bit more cold air in place (28-32 degrees) and actually breaks out some wintry weather across central and northern parts of se texas, it is light though, its a low chance, but still worth watching as this coastal low idea is about 6-6.5 days so alot can change with that

[txtwister78]

Latest NAM moves the front through a good portion of the state by midnight Wednesday morning (mostly dry with a little freezing drizzle around the red river counties), but with the help of some late Feb sunshine, the NAM keeps several regions across the state comfortably above freezing in the afternoon. Wind chills however will be the main story (especially at night into the early morning hours) with this front as single digits are showing up all the way down into the southern HC Wed morning.

[wxman22]

Looks like we will be below freezing for 72 hours here, with lows in the single digits Tuesday and Wednesday!

[Cpv17]

I haven’t even looked at the models the past couple days. So if I’m understanding things correctly, they’ve warmed up pretty significantly over the past couple days, correct? What happened? A hard freeze doesn’t even seem likely down here in SE TX anymore. Bunch of hype for nothing.

[Stratton23]

Cpv17 yeah this is looking pretty boring now, NWS has highs near 50 for me and most of se texas degrees behind this front, thats not even close to cold or even impressive at all

[Brent]

I'm still wondering up here if the models are truly right about the absolute best snow being NE of here. How the onset is a mix here with arctic air flooding in. I'm not fully understanding why but then again look at how unimpressive this cold is down further south in Texas now. Maybe it's all related?

Is it even right? We've seen larger shifts in 48 hours this winter. I mean Tulsa didn't issue a watch for a couple inches that's for sure.. we have higher standards than that

[wxman22]

I haven’t even looked at the models the past couple days. So if I’m understanding things correctly, they’ve warmed up pretty significantly over the past couple days, correct? What happened? A hard freeze doesn’t even seem likely down here in SE TX anymore. Bunch of hype for nothing.

It becomes harder for arctic air to penetrate into the southern half of Texas as you get later in the season. You need the depth of the arctic air to be "thicker" for it to be a higher impact for the southern half of the state. While a strong ridge is driving this airmass south. The airmass is too shallow to completely overpower warm air advection from the Gulf and also the sun angle.

[Stratton23]

Could need to watch the coastal low that develops behind the arctic front more carefully, ensembles are getting a little more “ aggressive “ with ice potential in central texas late next week

[AubreyStorm]

No SNOW on Denton, McKinney or Frisco?

Let me know!

[txtwister78]

Could need to watch the coastal low that develops behind the arctic front more carefully, ensembles are getting a little more “ aggressive “ with ice potential in central texas late next week

Yeah the good news by then is surface temps are so borderline (even in the early morning hours when its typically the coldest) that it doesn't look to me (right now at least) that this would verify. Temps on Friday will have a lot to do with the expanded cloud cover and whatever precip manages to fall but without a reinforcing shot of colder air, I question whether temps will be cold enough for freezing rain by then and that's a good thing in my opinion. Who needs that mess.

[Cpv17]

Cpv17 yeah this is looking pretty boring now, NWS has highs near 50 for me and most of se texas degrees behind this front, thats not even close to cold or even impressive at all

Nope. Just a lil stronger than a normal February front for our area. Definitely nothing to write home about. Definitely disappointing.

[txtwister78]

I haven’t even looked at the models the past couple days. So if I’m understanding things correctly, they’ve warmed up pretty significantly over the past couple days, correct? What happened? A hard freeze doesn’t even seem likely down here in SE TX anymore. Bunch of hype for nothing.

What happened is the airmass isn't as cold as some of the models were initially indicating a few days ago in the medium range which again isn't all that surprising as we've witnessed before, but more importantly, given the calendar, my view all along heading into this time period was that because we're so late into winter and our norms are higher than they would be for January for example, it was going to take something impressive/borderline extreme from the models to actually verify in order to bring the type of cold that would have some greater impact deeper into Texas. The sun will also help and again going back to our calendar/norms for this time of year, the angle of the sun in late Feb makes a difference than say in January in the afternoon hours especially hence our norms climbing.

Finally, this pattern overall has been fairly progressive and so we've been getting these cold shots from the plains but because they tend to be shallower in Feb and we're under this fast-moving pattern which also isn't unusual for Feb, we tend to modify with pacific air and with help from the gulf. This cold shot however will be the coldest we've seen in Feb so it will have a little more staying power and because of lack of cloud cover overall, you'll feel it more at night when the sun goes down and radiational cooling takes over. But notwithstanding the wind chill factor, overall, this is manageable cold for a good portion of the state.

[txtwister78]

Speaking of pacific air, it floods a good chunk of the country beyond next week for a nice reprieve from the cold.

[Brent]

More posts about a possible blizzard here

I'm ready to go big or go home the warmup is definitely coming

[Stratton23]

heck no to pacific air, im turning on my fan and blowing that junk far out of texas , it doesnt belong here

[Iceresistance]

Models are downtrending with precip, but the last time it did that, it uptrended at the last second and went crazy