aggiegeog

The potential is there for a very cold February for almost all of NAm. Only thing lacking is a -NAO to generate a storm though they matters more for East of Texas. For us to get snow out of this We will want to see periods of neural PNA allowing for SW US troughs.

Stormy as in unsettled with a trough extending into the SW US. Canada will be very cold so severe for the Southern Plains appears unlikely.

As expected the weather looks to turn very cold and possibly stormy as we enter February. A big Pacific ridge extending into Siberia along with a mean trough over the West which slowly slides east.

Two tonado warnings east of DFW right now. One over Lake Tawakoni and one just east of Corsicana.

The 12Z NAM 3km maxed out at 28" of snow on Sunday for the mountain above my family's place in southern Taos County NM. They have not had even half that this season as a whole.

6 was my low, some around here got to 4.

9 here at 3am. Spots around are as low as 7. Doubt anyone goes below 0 but even still looks like the coldest night around here in 29 years.

On track for some mid single digits around here and maybe below 0 along the Red River.

Now to see if the I20 corridor can go below 10 tonight and the I30 corridor below 0. The last time either of those happened in E TX was 1989.

My street is now clear, but seeing reports that mossy roads around here are ice covered. I sure the difference here is I did not get any freezing rain and barely any sleet. Also very little traffic to compact the snow so the sub filtering through the clouds wad enough to warm the blacktop here.

Roads are snow covered in Hideaway and about an inch so far of powdery snow. We are about a third of the way through this event here. Temp down to 23 and steadily falling. Never seen show like this except in the mountains.

26 and pretty much all snow in Hideaway. Dusting now and accumulating good now.

Moderate sleet in Hideaway. Temp is 30 with mid 20s moving in. All going according to expectations. Still expecting 2+" of snow here. 700mb front did its job to light up the radar.

We will see how theradar looks overt the next couple hours and the amount of snow showing up near the Red River will tell the take off what we can expect overnight.

It seems that at least the latter portion of the period that the HRRR has ice could be sleet of even snow per the soundings which show just a slight warm nose. This could bump totals up some even if it is overdoing moisture by a bit. HRRR gives me around 0.5" liquid with subfreezing temps. Gives Dallas Co 0.1-0.2" liquid when subfreezing.

I sure am hoping that the cold deepens quickly cutting down on the ice and sleet and upping the snow. Deep E TX and northern Central Texas could get a good amount of sleet though. Up along I 20 in E TX we could see 3-5" totals if the cold deepens fast enough maybe more in spots. The trends are sure looking good right now.

A big thing in our favor up along I20 is that the models last night initialized the surface high too strong which caused things to dry out too quickly up this way. The hi res models are more accurate with their initialization and they show percip starting along the Read River vs along I20. This leads to a longer duration precip event. Up here most precip will be frozen but we will have to see when the transition happens from sleet to snow.

Still looks like it will be a rare event where E TX is the bullseye.

Travel is looking rough for much of the state for the majority of this week. Starting tomorrow evening north of I-20 and down to I-10 by late Tuesday. Along the I-20 corridor expect mainly snow with general amounts of 1-3". For Central and Deep E TX into northern SE TX this is more of a sleet event with some freezing rain, in this area we are looking at around .5" of sleet and freezing rain accumulations. Along I-10 looking at a mix, likely primarily a elevated surface issue with maybe some sleet accumulating on grass.

This event is a 1 to localize 3 inch snow event along I20. All we need is a general .1" of liquid or even less with temps in the teens and no significant warm nose this far north. And i am betting the late week system comes in much colder aloft and at the surface those details with begin to be seen by Monday at the earliest.

Different models have their strong suits. This event is a larger scale event so the globals seem to have it under control. I am hoping the NAM will begin helping to nail down the sweet spots latwr today and esp tomorrow. Also very interested in what the RGEM shows starting tomorrow it seems to do well with larger scale events at short range.

DFW likely gets the front close to midday with rain going to snow during the early afternoon and lasting through the evening though amounts look to be light. I am thinking a dusting to localized couple inches with the most on the east side of DFW. For the Tyler area I expect the front early afternoon with rain changing to sleet/freezing rain by late afternoon and to snow by evening lasting into Tuesday morning maybe. Areas between I-20 and I -30 in E TX could see 1-3". In Deep E TX I think the front comes through during the evening Monday with rain going to freezing rain and sleet by late evening and changing to snow by Tuesday morning, down here snow will likely be less than an inch but icing could be an issue. For northern SE TX and the Brazos Valley I would give a similar forecast. I do think there is potential that models are currently underestimating moisture return so amounts are more likely to increase than decrease over eastern TX. I am not a good source for Central Texas, but you could likely extrapolate my above forecasts to include areas of Central Texas. In short, yes I do think that the front will arrive earlier and a tad colder than forecast. Also moisture could end up deeper than modeled.

And this could be a nice fluffy snow so a .25" liquid could mean 4-6" of snow across the northern half of the state.

Next week looks very cold with multiple systems to watch.

It sure has been an odd winter. It seems like the endless +PNA is finally breaking down so a more typical pattern should emerge at some point.