aggiegeog

There is a reason I have held off on updating my official forecast for the event. They do not have that option. They very well may be revising right back up tonight.

Man I feel for them having to attempt to forecast this. SHV also lessening their amounts it seems.

Man, the data this afternoon is highlighting some extreme snow possibilities for NE TX. This is a wildly volatile setup.

Most of the model sites only plot snow or freezing rain. Have to interpret sleet in between. I believe so will see hefty sleet totals out of this. 1" QPF with a profile fluctuating near 0C could result in multi inch sleet.

agreed that it is wild that we are having this much model trouble within 48h of onset. RGEM has 2" QPF for DFW and NAM has basically 0" QPF. Other models in between but none go anywhere close to 0 for DFW. 06Z NAM fell in line with other models then 12Z just goes way off by itself. Super odd behavior even for the sometimes crazy NAM.

Yea its interesting for sure. SHV is even more conservative than FTW with these typically and they actually issued their watch before FTW. It seems that they are leaning on Euro heavily, I agree with that myself. I think the NAM is just being its wonky self, we are still in extended range for the NAM we have to remember. It is pretty clear that for DFW east we are looing at around 1" QPF with sub 35 temps. The question is mainly on when the SW trough and northern stream shortwave phase, I lean on Euro solution of this happening early. The earlier they phase the faster we get precip and the less the mid level WAA ahead of the storm. Also watching to see how much the Rockies high can press into the backside of this storm with cold air without shutting down precip.

Models this morning really want to hang a chunk of the trough back in the SW which is killing our event. I still think this has a good chance to revert back to previous solutions assuming we can get the trough to eject whole.

NWS has hoisted watches for N and NE TX. Solid snow for N and NE TX. Major ice and sleet with some snow for E TX.

I will disagree with it have a chance to become a rain event. We have a Arctic high pressing cold air into this storm and the storm starts below freezing in most places. All rain is reserved for south of Austin to Lufkin and even along there it could well mix.

We are talking about a very wet storm, key for this forecast is nailing where the column stays sub 32F. For example my location is modelled for >1.5" QPF while the entire column rides within 2C of freezing the whole event from the surface to above 700mb. That would result in a constant fluctuation of precip types so could be talking a 1" elevated surface only ice storm, 3" plus sleet and snow mix or a foot of snow. Tiny variations in the atmosphere will make massive differences.

That is for sure. My current thinking is that the new high over the Rockies will mitigate the WAA at least along and north of the I-20 corridor. Obviously this is E TX and WAA could win out. Around here, I expect light snow Wed night. Intensity will increase while precip becomes more of a mix Thu. By Thu evening/night the trough nears cooling the mid levels for precip to go back to all snow. The snow should end Friday morning as the low passes to the east. Something like >0.1" ice, 1" sleet and 2-3" snow for Tyler area. Maybe .1" ice, 1" sleet and 2" snow for Longview. I live north of I-20 so I am hoping mine leans even more in on mainly snow but gonna be a close call.

The upper low path is pretty locked in and has been for days. It will dig into N MX tomorrow before kicking out along the MX/US border. As it kicks out a low will form around Brownsville, TX and travel up the coast. This is a pattern that happens every winter and they rarely go north of models. If anything they tend to be suppressed by the Arctic high pressures over the top of them. Y'all could get some snow out of this as the SW trough merges into the Polar jet. The heavy stuff is related to the Gulf low though.

I think models are way overdoing the freezing rain threat. yes there will be some but I do not anticipate a big area of freezing rain. a few spots in the Hill Country and Deep East Texas may be the exception to that. For the most part I think this is a rain/sleet/snow event, I do not buy into the major WAA that some models are trying to show.

Temp wise this is not a particularly cold event. Highs in the upper 20s and lows in the teens happens every year. And that cold is just in N TX the rest of the state will have highs in the 30s and lows in the 20s. A big part of the 2021 failure was freezing rain affecting wind farms and I don't see that being a big issue across areas where the wind farms are located.

We are now within range of the higher res models so we should start to get a better idea on the details of this event. They are showing less WAA and light precip during the day Wed ahead of the main event. They will soon be in range to see the main event.