Texas Winter 2025-2026

[Golfisnoteasy75]

I spent an hour talking with Grok! And Grok says we will have cold weather in january, surely Grok knows all right?


Thats how down bad i am right now, talking to AI asking for hope in January lol

I understand stratton. Its tough in the south to get winter weather. Too many things have to come together

[Stratton23]

Brent honestly even in the deep south, expecting snow is pretty silly, but to have an extended stretch of upper 70’s to low 80’s even for the deep south in winter is just criminal , i think when you get stuck in a very warm pattern like this, its just human nature to want to expect something different down the line, i do expect to get cold again, its just right now this pattern has everyone all desperate for change, and im definitely one of those folks lol

[Brent]

Brent honestly even in the deep south, expecting snow is pretty silly, but to have an extended stretch of upper 70’s to low 80’s even for the deep south in winter is just criminal , i think when you get stuck in a very warm pattern like this, its just human nature to want to expect something different down the line, i do expect to get cold again, its just right now this pattern has everyone all desperate for change, and im definitely one of those folks lol

Yeah I know. I get it. I need to get off social media because everyone there sucks and it's 100 times worse in this dumb pattern when they remember like the 3 or 4 Christmases it has snowed around it and swear it always snows. I remember tornadoes at Christmas in Alabama....and even Dallas once. I mean we're kind of lucky this year in that regard I guess even though it sucks. Im just ready to move on at this point

It looks like temperatures closer to normal for New Years and then AccuWeather does show some colder air trying towards mid January. I know I don't trust it either but it had no cold air the other day so at least it's something different.

[Brent]

Euro has snow nearby at day 9

[Stratton23]

Saw that, just read cosgroves new post on facebook , hes not backing down on a cold January at all, we will see, he knows his stuff and is definitely more right than wrong most of the time

[wxman22]

Texas is such a large state that the winter season can be completely different depending on your location. For example looking over data for WF its snows pretty much every year here. But of course the amounts vary. Some years you get a decent amount of snow while other years you get more ice and very little snow.Believe it or not theirs been 60 winter weather advisories in Wichita Falls since 2010.

As much as we sometimes complain when we get stuck into these warm spells, Texas is very lucky when it comes to winterstorms. When you consider the latitude we are at. Relativity speaking wintertsorms are not that rare in Texas especially for the northern half of the state.And even the southern half of Texas gets more winter weather events on average than areas to the east along the gulf coast. If you look at the state as whole and not just in one specific area, off hand i can count over 10 winter weather events across the state in just the last 5 years. (2020-2025)

This is primarily due to the topography of the plains and being on the lee side of the Rockies.This topography allows cold air to funnel into the western 2/3rds of the state faster and more aggressive than it otherwise would. Our neighbors to the east have a harder time getting winterstorms than we do. I would know as I use to live in the deep south. ( I lived in Louisiana and Mississippi)

Just look at the current temps gradient across the state. You can literally see that affect from topography happening in real time right now as we speak!

[Brent]

Texas is such a large state that the winter season can be completely different depending on your location. For example looking over data for WF its snows pretty much every year here. But of course the amounts vary. Some years you get a decent amount of snow while other years you get more ice and very little snow.Believe it or not theirs been 60 winter weather advisories in Wichita Falls since 2010.

As much as we sometimes complain when we get stuck into these warm spells, Texas is very lucky when it comes to winterstorms. When you consider the latitude we are at. Relativity speaking wintertsorms are not that rare in Texas especially for the northern half of the state.And even the southern half of Texas gets more winter weather events on average than areas to the east along the gulf coast. If you look at the state as whole and not just in one specific area, off hand i can count over 10 winter weather events across the state in just the last 5 years. (2020-2025)

This is primarily due to the topography of the plains and being on the lee side of the Rockies.This topography allows cold air to funnel into the western 2/3rds of the state faster and more aggressive than it otherwise would. Our neighbors to the east have a harder time getting winterstorms than we do. I would know as I use to live in the deep south. ( I lived in Louisiana and Mississippi)

Just look at the current temps gradient across the state. You can literally see that affect from topography happening in real time right now as we speak!

https://i.ibb.co/Cp2JghpN/rtma-t2m-tx-202512211200.png

Yeah exactly. I have a lot of friends back east who have never gotten over what happened here in 2021 because they have better climo than most of Texas and yet... They haven't seen theirs still. I've blown some people's minds with how cold we can get here every year since. Exactly because they can't get the same thing

And then to make them really irritated they were too far north during the Gulf storm in January the pattern a couple weeks ago barely got some flakes falling and now you have this torch for Christmas which may go into January for them

Yeah we've been pretty lucky here considering. I could dig up some really bad snow droughts I've heard about over there. People talk about it here but like it's extremely questionable if it even exists up here. It's painfully obvious over there

[Ntxw]

One slight trend over night is in the new year the models weakens the Aleutian ridge, showed a little more dominant Greenland ridge. We'll see if the guidance continues that, silver lining?

[Stratton23]

Ntxw maybe, just maybe, there is always hope lol, but ive been noticing the euro has been consistently trending toward a colder outlook with the 500 mb height pattern

[Ntxw]

Ntxw maybe, just maybe, there is always hope lol, but ive been noticing the euro has been consistently trending toward a colder outlook with the 500 mb height pattern

I'm looking for anything to break this cycle, I just can't do 70s-80s this time of year. SW winds are the worst for me starting in January because then mountain cedar blows up like the plague from the southern part of the state up here.

[Quixotic]

And then, depression set in.

[starsfan65]

And then, depression set in.

Depression?

[TomballEd]

Cool ENSO isn't our friend. If Texas does see cold, it isn't the fun upper 20s night temps with daytime highs maybe approaching 50 but thats ok dewpoints are low enough for snow. Its more likely the 2021 burst pipes all over the state and damage citrus groves freezing drizzle stuff. Warm ENSO's cooler and usually have more snow. Next winter it will be different if the models are correct. Better chance of an economically damaging but low precip event this winter. Frozen drizzle that sort of falls like snow is pretty but not worth it.

Edit for brain freeze.

[Ntxw]

It's going to get pretty cold in Europe. This winter kind of gives me flashes of the typical 2000s when a lot of the cold at times was eastern US, then -NAO was cold over the EU.

OTOH signs are there by mid-January there may be shifts of a more poleward Pacific ridge and lower heights over the Aleutians. The cold may shift a bit from Alaska to C-Canada, just maybe. Long way to get there though.

[Stratton23]

If im not mistaken, when Europe turns cold, that usually means the US turns cold sometime after that, there seems to be at some correlation between the two

[Ntxw]

If im not mistaken, when Europe turns cold, that usually means the US turns cold sometime after that, there seems to be at some correlation between the two

Very very long range GEFS shows the lower heights NW of Hawaii shifts to north of Hawaii and intruding the Aleutian Isles chain. That may be an early signal. I'd watch the MJO, it needs to move, if we see it start hauling into 1-2+ then we know the Pacific will change.

[Harp.1]

From what I see, the latest Euro looks cold around the 28th-30th.

[Stratton23]

Yup, Euro is usually the king with 500 mb height patterns, so we will see, and their is some attempt by the GEFS BC to move into phase 2 at the end of december, but im interested to see if the euro is on to something or not

[Wthrfan]

Seems as if the extended forecast pattern has everyone in a state of confusion. Even Larry Cosgrove in his latest blog post seems a little puzzled about what January will hold.

[Brent]

Seems as if the extended forecast pattern has everyone in a state of confusion. Even Larry Cosgrove in his latest blog post seems a little puzzled about what January will hold.

Haha I just opened Facebook and the first post is about all the cold air coming in January

The second post is the TV met went to Utah to ski and he can't believe there's no snow at all....

Yeah I dunno guys maybe you should ask AI about winter again