Texas Winter 2025-2026

[orangeblood]

Good illustration of what's on the table

[TomballEd]

After Houston, Austin is the most important city in Texas. I know, I spent 6 of the best years (I changed from EE to Petroleum Engineering and was working on an MS when a Gentleman's C in 'Systems of Linear Differential Equations' told me it wouldn't work) drinking beer, hanging at Crown and Anchor or Posse East or on 6th Street (I could drink, I did 6 years in the Navy because I was poor) or just drinking from kegs of Shiner. Anyway. Sleet and freezing rain on the hills W of the Balcones Escarpment would be a driving disaster but that looks like most of it. However, looking at the GFS sounding I did find a sounding with a saturated dendritic layer and temps near or below freezing in the entire sounding.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

The GEFS continues to trend colder further south and that's not unusual as these models play "catch up" with arctic air progression but with that trend you also increase the duration and timing of frozen precip further south as well.

So GFS op does have support from its ensemble

Its an outlier at the upper levels though, not going to get an accurate precip depiction being this disconnected right now. Would expect more of the typical northwest to southeast transition from rain/frz rn/sleet/snow (like its ENS Mean is showing) than the north to south tranistion that the GFS Op is showing right now. GFS OP looks off right now IMO

GFS OP
https://images.weatherbell.com/model/gfs-deterministic/namer/z500_anom/1768824000/1769299200-nuCZ6iFo1P4.png

GEFS
https://images.weatherbell.com/model/gfs-ensemble-all-avg/namer/z500_anom/1768824000/1769299200-RyuIO3TSorM.png

Ens having energy hanging back into W TX would be ideal. Also is your typical path for a large cold dome of HP.

[wxman57]

Yep, CMC and ICON handled surface temps better during our extreme events while Euro is king at the upper levels

Canadian was absolutely horrible for Houston in the big freeze of 2021 and last January. It was 20-30 degrees too cold. So far, it's behaving just as badly with lows into the 10-15 deg range in Houston while all other globals, ensembles, and AI are 15-20 degrees warmer. It's always ridiculously cold for Houston. Second worse with the last event was the EC-AI, which was ridiculously too warm. AI models don't do well with such shallow cold air. Stay far away from the AI models, as well as the Canadian (at least in SE TX).

[txtwister78]

Good illustration of what's on the table

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G_CeieRWMAItAs-?format=jpg&name=large

Agree with this and that's why I think your AI's are/will struggle with these setups.

If you put a 1050 arctic hign deeper into the Midwest that argues for more suppression in my opinion..

[TeamPlayersBlue]

Yep, CMC and ICON handled surface temps better during our extreme events while Euro is king at the upper levels

Canadian was absolutely horrible for Houston in the big freeze of 2021 and last January. It was 20-30 degrees too cold. So far, it's behaving just as badly with lows into the 10-15 deg range in Houston while all other globals, ensembles, and AI are 15-20 degrees warmer. It's always ridiculously cold for Houston. Second worse with the last event was the EC-AI, which was ridiculously too warm. AI models don't do well with such shallow cold air. Stay far away from the AI models, as well as the Canadian (at least in SE TX).

GFS was bad too, predicted 0-5 degrees for Sugar Land. I think it was seeing much more snow on the ground for SE Tx, which didnt pan out. In SL, i was actually dry slotted for quite some time of the event.

[Quixotic]

Good illustration of what's on the table

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G_CeieRWMAItAs-?format=jpg&name=large

Give me amplified system. Never had a blizzard warning in DFW.

[Ntxw]

I think initially the Euro will probably hold serve. For the most part it has phased much more than the GFS the last couple of cycles. So far looks roughly the same.

[snownado]

After Houston, Austin is the most important city in Texas.

So I see we're just talking to be talking now...

[TomballEd]

Yep, CMC and ICON handled surface temps better during our extreme events while Euro is king at the upper levels

Canadian was absolutely horrible for Houston in the big freeze of 2021 and last January. It was 20-30 degrees too cold. So far, it's behaving just as badly with lows into the 10-15 deg range in Houston while all other globals, ensembles, and AI are 15-20 degrees warmer. It's always ridiculously cold for Houston. Second worse with the last event was the EC-AI, which was ridiculously too warm. AI models don't do well with such shallow cold air. Stay far away from the AI models, as well as the Canadian (at least in SE TX).

I think AI models 'learn' from their mistakes. They may have been 'trained' with many years of weather data, but Arctic intrusions/winter precip here is rare enough it may not have been trained. I think I see a subtle trend on the models suggesting for SETX the back end of the precip is fast enough to make SETX mostly rain. Mostly rain. Which may make it harder to treat for the freezing rain at the end. About 10 years ago an otherwise well forecast ice storm was a bridge/overpass disaster because the more than expected liquid rain washed most of the calcium chloride spray put down to prevent icing.

[Ntxw]

That subtropical jet on the Euro...I wouldn't be surprised in the coming days the ULL out to the west trend is way more amped...firehose of moisture.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

I use tropical tidbits for model watching. It takes such a long time for the Euro pop up on the site.

[wxman22]

12Z Euro

[Iceresistance]

That subtropical jet on the Euro...I wouldn't be surprised in the coming days the ULL out to the west trend is way more amped...firehose of moisture.

Friend of mine on Discord just posted this, and I had to share it here because good god almighty

https://s12.gifyu.com/images/bkMxP.gif

[Brent]

Good grief at the Euro. Look at the moisture envelope

I definitely think there's reason to believe this could produce historic totals somewhere

The GEFS has a 14 inch member here

[JDawg512]

After Houston, Austin is the most important city in Texas.

So I see we're just talking to be talking now...

He's not wrong tho lol

but all kidding aside, I would rather keep it all liquid here in Austin. I still have PTSD from 2021 and 2023 and as I said back then, I've had more than enough frozen precipitation to last me the rest of my life. Bring on the rain. Leave the freezing temps behind.

[txtwister78]

I think the Euro looks more like the GFS with that strung out moisture from the STJ influence but my guess is it's still too warm further south and so this could still shift south in terms of freezing rain axis.

As is typical for these events your high resolution models will have a much better handle on surface temps and timing

[TomballEd]

After Houston, Austin is the most important city in Texas.

So I see we're just talking to be talking now...

I get you. My family lives in Bedford but winter precip happens annually in the Metroplex. Unless ICON verifies DFW should get significant snow a/o sleet regardless. Your second most important city in Texas?


I see people loving the ICON when it supports a TC landfall where someone expects/hopes it makes landfall. Indeed, it did Beryl better than most global guidance and the Germans should know winter weather. Lucy still has a chance to fake the field goal, pass the ball, and get intercepted.

[Brent]

18 inches of snow in Southern Oklahoma on the Euro

Is this really happening

[Ntxw]

18 inches of snow in Southern Oklahoma on the Euro

Is this really happening

The qpf trend is more shocking if anything. Within just a few cycles from barely anything to near record anomalies for the period.