Texas Winter 2025-2026

[Ralph's Weather]

It seems fairly likely that precip type boundaries will shift south. Areas with mainly snow Sat will threaten sub zero Sun and Mon mornings.

[Kingarabian]

When was the last time we had unanimous model support for what appears to be a blizzard that will affect multiple states this early?

[Ntxw]

When was the last time we had unanimous model support for what appears to be a blizzard that will affect multiple states this early?

Feb 2021 for this region. Models were generally in lock step snow and ice would traverse the state very early on. What they diverged from was the brutally cold temps in which the Euro performed poorly until right up the event a day or two.

https://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopi ... start=3940

[ThunderSleetDreams]

I’ll personally fund Mr Hebert’s flight to St Croix.

[TomballEd]

Go away and its 10 pages later. Cat 4 hurricane headed straight for Galveston?

[Ntxw]

Euro AI is pretty cold and stormy, looks like winter storm from TX to the northeast would be a high impact national storm. Another system to end the month. Makes me think Euro will hold serve.

[Ntxw]

GEFS is also ticking up on qpf and winter wx amounts from earlier runs today.

[Stratton23]

00z Euro is in, state wide winter storm with freezing rain all the way down to matagorda bay lol, but looks it has a 2nd disturbance for monday- tuesday, crazy, and on top of that has a reinforcing surge of arctic air on thrusday, good grief!

[Harp.1]

00z Euro is in, state wide winter storm with freezing rain all the way down to matagorda bay lol, but looks it has a 2nd disturbance for monday- tuesday, crazy, and on top of that has a reinforcing surge of arctic air on thrusday, good grief!

What about Louisiana?

[Brent]

Good grief seeing the Euro fairly consistent today in a historic storm that's crazy

A lot of well known people here still only use it or heavily lean on it

[Stratton23]

Harp.1 Cold rain for southern louisiana , freezing rain to the north , but its close

[DW5522]

Looks like we might have to dust off that firewood, this one could be a doozy!

[txtwister78]

Bulk of freezing rain stays north of interstate 10 but it's getting close.

Euro does put down some light freezing rain/drizzle further south Sunday afternoon/night as the upper level disturbance begins to eject out later across SC TX and that would need to be watched especially if Euro trends closer to GFS and CMC solutions regarding surface temps.

Still a giant mess regardless

[Stratton23]

Oh this could definitely be a real doosy, not only for saturday- Monday , but now ensembles are also showing a 2nd disturbance moving through tuesday- wednesday bringing more chances of frozen precipitation to the state, we have alot to track

[DW5522]

My son is supposed to have a birthday party on Saturday at our local indoor swimming pool haha I’m trying to muster the courage to tell my wife it’s probably not gonna happen.

[Brent]

Below freezing for over a week on the Euro and most days are way below freezing

A high of 7 on Saturday. This is shades of 2021. This is just unbelievable trends over the weekend

[DukeMu]

CMC

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gem/2026011900/gem_T2m_scus_27.png

[Brent]

The hype is gonna be out of control soon if these models hold up. I mean even the EPS mean almost stays below freezing for a week here

Wowsers there's a 15 inch snow member on the EPS here and it all falls by Saturday night!!!

[Tammie]

The Ft Worth NWS is chiming in uncharacteristically early in the morning about this weekend. They see what we see…

.LONG TERM...
(Tuesday night through next Sunday)
Issued at 101 AM CST Mon Jan 19 2026

Substantial changes have been made within the long term forecast period regarding a significant Arctic air intrusion and chances for wintry precip from Friday into the upcoming weekend. Before digging more into that, we do have some midweek rain chances to contend with first, as moisture return finally resumes late Tuesday into Wednesday. While the onset of southerly flow will
initially be moisture-starved during the daytime Tuesday, a more favorable fetch will send a swath of rich Gulf moisture and low stratus into the area late Tuesday night into Wednesday as a fast- moving shortwave within the subtropical jet impinges on the area from the west. Overcast skies will be the result area-wide on
Wednesday morning, while light rain due to the warm advection regime will be confined primarily to areas along/east of I-35 with rain chances tapering off to less than 10% to the west. PoPs have been increased from previous forecasts, especially for the Wednesday morning period, although this will be a high-PoP low- QPF event with only light rain and drizzle in store for most of
the area. Amounts will range from just a few hundredths near the I-35 corridor to perhaps about 1/4" at most across our east/southeast zones. Rain chances will come to an end by Wednesday evening as the disturbance translates eastward, but the lack of a scouring boundary may allow some cloud cover to linger into Thursday with seasonably cool temperatures in the 40s and 50s.

Within the past 24 hours, a rather monumental shift has occurred within the guidance envelope for the end of the workweek and the upcoming weekend. Predictability beyond Friday had previously been in the gutter with a massive disparity in the upper pattern evolution from Day 6 onward, and a forecast temperature spread of
anywhere from teens to 70s for the upcoming weekend. A much clearer consensus exists now than just 12-24 hours ago, with all global guidance now in very good agreement regarding an Arctic air intrusion into North and Central Texas from Friday into the weekend. The GEFS/ECMWF ensembles are further supported by the AIGEFS and the ECMWF AIFS, which unanimously depict subfreezing
air coinciding with widespread precipitation. Statistical guidance and the NBM are on board, with Saturday`s forecast highs going from the 50s/60s to the 20s/30s within a single forecast cycle.

The impending Arctic intrusion will be the culmination of
prolonged longwave troughing over the Central US which will finally unleash a significant Arctic airmass into the entire central portion of the CONUS during the second half of the week. Sources of lift from trailing disturbances within the parent longwave trough will offer one or more opportunities for wintry precip following the arrival of subfreezing air. The question is no longer "if" it will get cold, but instead "how soon" will it get cold. 24 hours ago, the ECMWF suite was the slowest solution and not depicting this scenario until sometime early next week,
but it is now the fastest with the Arctic front arriving during the daytime Friday. The GFS suite has been fairly consistent with bringing the coldest air into the area Friday evening/night. This timing will be the biggest forecast problem for the next few days, and may have another wrench thrown into the mix once within time
range (84 hours) of the NAM which often does a superior job of handling the pace of these shallow Arctic airmasses.

The next accompanying forecast problem is of course the potential for wintry precip, and a substantial amount of accumulations have been introduced to the formal forecast from Friday evening through Saturday night. Widespread light/moderate rain should be ongoing ahead of the frontal passage during the daytime Friday,
while the arrival of subfreezing air behind the Arctic cold front results in a north-south transition to freezing rain, sleet, and eventually snow in parts of North Texas from Friday night into Saturday. Most of the precipitation presently depicted in guidance will actually be due to a secondary deep upper trough which will be ejecting from the Baja Peninsula Friday night. A robust overrunning regime will be the result from Friday night into
Saturday, and if some guidance members are to be believed, perhaps even into Sunday as well. Persistent precipitation could result in a scenario where temperatures hover below freezing for a
prolonged period (perhaps all day Saturday for some areas), resulting in impactful accumulations of ice and/or snow. It would be rather premature to further discuss precip types or amounts given this is a Day 5/6 forecast, but the overall pattern would make a p-type transition zone right through the forecast area quite likely with a spatial gradient of impacts due to combinations of freezing rain, sleet, and snow. For now, the forecast will largely depict a wintry mix with a general north- south gradient as described above. Accumulating ice will be indicated across much of the forecast area Friday night into Saturday, with some accumulating snow also included roughly
near/north of I-20 with the assumption that a warm nose would cool sufficiently to allow for this transition to occur following initial freezing rain/sleet.

At this time, the best case scenario would be for a slightly
slower Arctic air arrival with subfreezing temps holding off
until Friday evening/night, allowing school/work commutes to conclude before impacts to travel can commence. A worse (and still quite plausible) scenario would be for the subfreezing air to arrive earlier in the day Friday which would necessitate early dismissals or result in a deterioration of travel conditions during a Friday evening commute in parts of North Texas. As mentioned previously, this will be the main forecast issue the next couple of days, and may not have more clarity until within
range of the NAM and other high-res guidance as we get into the midweek period. Sufficient evidence exists among guidance at this time range to conclude that this will be our first legitimate shot at winter weather impacts in North/Central Texas so far this season.

[Brent]

My forecast Saturday went from mid 30s to low 20s in one update