Texas Winter 2025-2026

[txtwister78]

Early trends but looks like Euro is also hanging the ULL a little further back similar to the GFS.

Please remind me what does hanging back mean? Are we starting to see little flies in the ointment that could be a major bust in terms of no snow and this thing is just a dry cold?

No, this is strictly more about duration of the event more than anything. Placement/strength of the arctic high will play a larger role where your snow/sleet/frz rain axis establishes itself and how quickly that transitions in particular on the northern side of the axis.

[cheezyWXguy]

I'm interested in how you all think ERCOT will do if there is widespread winter precip throughout the state. Thanks.

They've made improvements thankfully since the 21 event/disaster and so while their may be localized power outages as a result of ice buildup unrelated to ERCOT, I would expect that they're making preparations now.

Agreed, with the shorter duration of this event, this seems more like a downstream issue with distribution prioritization or power line failures from ice buildup than an upstream issue with power generation. I think a more realistic worst case would be like feb 2011 rather than feb 2021. We won’t be competing for power with Jerryworld this time, but dfw has grown a lot since 15 years ago and I wonder if data centers would factor into such a scenario.

[Stratton23]

Would a slower upper low potentially allow for a weakening of the warm nose?

[Ntxw]

Would a slower upper low potentially allow for a weakening of the warm nose?

It would allow more time for cold air advection to cool the layers for sure. Also dependent on the HP strength. But this is what many of us having been hinting at. Colder, further south. Yes the slowing is also a side effect of deeper cold/west ridge, bigger broad national trough pushing that ULL southward. TheAustinMan highlighted brilliantly in his post.

[HockeyTx82]

So I just found out if you're using Microsoft Edge and you have Copilot enabled in it you can actually get it to summarize the page and ask your own questions to clarify what exactly people are posting. It's actually quite cool.

I would assume Google can do the same thing with chrome and Gemini.

But still fun to ask the questions in the board.

[txtwister78]

Would a slower upper low potentially allow for a weakening of the warm nose?

Gives it more time to cool at all levels needed for snow which Euro has getting into DFW.

[wxman22]

The Euro shows an almost 48 hour winter storm for North Texas.

[Tireman4]

Would a slower upper low potentially allow for a weakening of the warm nose?

It would allow more time for cold air advection to cool the layers for sure. Also dependent on the HP strength. But this is what many of us having been hinting at. Colder, further south. Yes the slowing is also a side effect of deeper cold/west ridge, bigger broad national trough pushing that ULL southward. TheAustinMan highlighted brilliantly in his post.

Agreed. I thought it was a master class in meteorology. Coming from you, Ntwx, who I have admired in your long range prowess, that is quite the compliment.

[Sambucol2024]

I'm interested in how you all think ERCOT will do if there is widespread winter precip throughout the state. Thanks.

They've made improvements thankfully since the 21 event/disaster and so while their may be localized power outages as a result of ice buildup unrelated to ERCOT, I would expect that they're making preparations now.

I hope so. We can make winter preps, but no power in extended freezing temps with precip is hard to stay warm without power.

[Quixotic]

I think at this juncture discussion is probably going to shift to talking about margins (1.5qpf vs 1.7qpf; 10F vs 8F etc) winter precip amounts is more tricky, some 500mb consolidation to do as well. Just wanted to note this as some exchanges and posts shifts moods one way or another. For casual viewers, I think most of us should take that a major winter storm is headed our way and not to make decisions on the emotional rollercoaster.

Watches will probably come tomorrow or Thursday for the highest chance regions is my initial guess.

That early? FWD usually waits until it’s imminent. We should have a betting pool.

[Ralph's Weather]

The stretching out of this even would increase freezing rain accretion rates. It will ease impacts in primary snow and sleet regions though. Very interesting event nonetheless and looking like a very high impact event.

[rwfromkansas]

Would a slower upper low potentially allow for a weakening of the warm nose?

Gives it more time to cool at all levels needed for snow which Euro has getting into DFW.

Yeah I like that finally this Euro run gives DFW some snow.

[txtwister78]

I'm interested in how you all think ERCOT will do if there is widespread winter precip throughout the state. Thanks.

They've made improvements thankfully since the 21 event/disaster and so while their may be localized power outages as a result of ice buildup unrelated to ERCOT, I would expect that they're making preparations now.

I hope so. We can make winter preps, but no power in extended freezing temps with precip is hard to stay warm without power.

Preps shhould be made regardless in my opinion because depending on how much ice an area/region receives you could experience power outages for days related to that anyway so agreed definitely an event you want to over prepare for

[snownado]

Would a slower upper low potentially allow for a weakening of the warm nose?

Not necessarily.

Too much separation from the main trough will limit a much more aggressive push of cold air.

At the same time, too quick of a phase with the pressure field buckling & rising heights will lead to a stronger warm nose that's more N-S oriented.

Despite positive overall model trends and the consensus that has developed over the past 48 hours, it's very much still a thread the needle setup for maximum QPF and maximum frozen precip.

[snownado]

The stretching out of this even would increase freezing rain accretion rates. It will ease impacts in primary snow and sleet regions though. Very interesting event nonetheless and looking like a very high impact event.

That's true for the areas that see predominately freezing rain, mainly because there would be less runoff (you don't want heavy rates for ideal ice accretion).

[jaguars_22]

So do we think we will still see models showing the cold moving deeper into Texas sooner? For instance south of San Antonio could see more ice now since it’s slower?

[TomballEd]

It won't be ERCOTs fault if parts of the state get over half an inch of freezing rain and trees come down on powerlines.

As far as cold weather and extra heating, I would hope ERCOT would dump AI centers and Crypto mines if the load is approaching limits.

I don't see the Euro for almost an hour and my work server blocks some of the image servers. Not imgur. Love to know if Euro keeps some freezing/frozen past midnight into Monday morning for SETX. Ice Sunday night/Monday morning would at least delay school openings.

[wxman57]

Not much time to post. I notice the 12Z GFS is farther south with freezing line, putting Houston below freezing from early Sunday to noon Monday. Freezing rain and sleet line shifted farther south, encroaching on Houston. Snow maximum pushed south out of OK to just north of D-FW. I know you folks up there will like that trend. Haven't checked EC yet.

[Ntxw]

Would a slower upper low potentially allow for a weakening of the warm nose?

It would allow more time for cold air advection to cool the layers for sure. Also dependent on the HP strength. But this is what many of us having been hinting at. Colder, further south. Yes the slowing is also a side effect of deeper cold/west ridge, bigger broad national trough pushing that ULL southward. TheAustinMan highlighted brilliantly in his post.

Agreed. I thought it was a master class in meteorology. Coming from you, Ntwx, who I have admired in your long range prowess, that is quite the compliment.

You are too kind sir! Lord I've been wrong as much as I've been right! Call out greatness when you see it, he did a fantastic job both in writing and visuals! His posts are very worth the read every time.

[Iceresistance]

Not much time to post. I notice the 12Z GFS is farther south with freezing line, putting Houston below freezing from early Sunday to noon Monday. Freezing rain and sleet line shifted farther south, encroaching on Houston. Snow maximum pushed south out of OK to just north of D-FW. I know you folks up there will like that trend. Haven't checked EC yet.

Can you get the snow max back to Oklahoma?