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Texas/New Mexico/Louisiana/Mexico Obs And Discussion Thread Part 2


Srain

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Saw Lake Travis when I was down there a couple of weeks ago. Great googly moogly it is low.

Yep. The current inflow into Travis is reportedly less than the inflow during the great drought period of the 1950s.

There are also a number of rivers here who have a per cubic inch water flow in the single digits. One river, the Llano River, is about to run dry and it is Llano's main source of water.

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:(

CLIMATE
THE TEMPERATURE HIT 101 DEGREES AT IAH THIS AFTERNOON. THIS IS THE
NINTH CONSECUTIVE DAY WITH THE TEMPERATURE REACHING OR EXCEEDING 100
DEGREES. THIS TIES FOR THE 3RD LONGEST SUCH STREAK IN CITY HISTORY.

14 DAYS  7/19/1980
11 DAYS  8/05/1998
9  DAYS  8/09/2011
9  DAYS  7/03/1980
8  DAYS  9/05/2000
8  DAYS  8/21/1993
8  DAYS  8/14/1962

THERE HAVE BEEN 20 DAYS SO FAR THIS YEAR WITH TEMPERATURES REACHING
OR EXCEEDING 100 DEGREES. THIS TIES FOR THE THIRD LONGEST SUCH
STREAK IN CITY OF HOUSTON WEATHER HISTORY. BELOW ARE THE TOP 5 YEARS
WITH 100 DEGREE DAYS:

32 DAYS  1980
24 DAYS  1998
20 DAYS  2011
20 DAYS  2000
19 DAYS  1901

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Triple digit high temps at both Austin reporting stations today means 57 days of 100 degrees or more in 2011 and it means 25 consecutive days in a row of 100 degrees or higher.

On the bright side, there's actually a 20% rain chance in our forecast for late Thursday night as a possible mesoscale system may edge just east enough to rain on us. I'll believe it when that happens though. :rolleyes:

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Triple digit high temps at both Austin reporting stations today means 57 days of 100 degrees or more in 2011 and it means 25 consecutive days in a row of 100 degrees or higher.

On the bright side, there's actually a 20% rain chance in our forecast for late Thursday night as a possible mesoscale system may edge just east enough to rain on us. I'll believe it when that happens though. :rolleyes:

I saw this on the NAM last night, and thought I was overtired. I am but it's still there, the tease.

nam_pres_48h.gif

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Morning e-mail from Jeff:

The records continue to fall and the situation across the state is becoming increasingly desperate for rainfall. Some of the record are just amazing on the drought and shows how bad things have become!

Some hope for widespread heavy rainfall this afternoon-Friday night over SW/W/C TX

Locally the strong heat ridge remains in place with yesterday being the tenth straight day at or above 100…we will do it again today and likely again Friday. The streak to break the 1980 record is 14 and to tie it would be on Sunday. It would appear that the ridge may weaken just enough over the weekend to drop 1-3 degrees off the high temperature which would support 98-101 across the region, so it is in question if the current 100 degree streak will be broken or tied.

Other big news is the possibility of “real” rain chances for our friends to the west of SE TX over SW/W/C TX. A weakness has developed along the eastern side of the ridge over N and C TX and moisture is pooling northward from the lower Rio Grande into W TX. Intense afternoon heating combined with a weak northerly flow aloft and disturbances rotating around the ridge will likely result in explosive thunderstorms formation this afternoon. Storm motions appear to be rather slow and moisture level high so the threat for short term excessive rainfall looks good from SW of San Antonio toward the NNE mainly west of I-35. Will need to keep an eye on meso scale trends for any eastward advancement of any thunderstorm complex. Set up is somewhat similar to past flooding events over the TX Hill Country where weak low to mid level low pressure systems evolve in a very tropical environment and begin to act like tropical systems producing excessive rainfall near/around their cores at night. It appears some decent rains may fall on the headwaters of the parched central TX rivers, but then again we are in one of the worst droughts on record and potential with previous systems has gone unrealized.

Heat:

Below is some comparison data to the summer of 1980 (hottest summer ever for TX) and 2011 for the number of days at or above 100:

College Station: 43 (1980), 38 (2011)

Huntsville: 43 (1980), 45 (2011)

Conroe: 22 (1980), 27 (2011)

BUSH IAH: 32 (1980), 21 (2011)

Hobby: 8 (1980), 6 (2011)

Dallas: 69 (1980), 47 (2011)

Waco: 63 (1980), 59 (2011)

Austin Mabry: 32 (1980), 57 (2011), record year is 69 in 1925

Del Rio: 56 (1980), 63 (2011), record year is 78 in 1953

San Antonio: 31 (1980), 33 (2011), record year is 59 in 2009

Number of consecutive days at or above 100 degrees:

Dallas: 42 (1980), 40 (2011)

Waco: 42 (1980), 42 (2011) *Today will break this record*

BUSH IAH: 14 (1980), 10 (2011)

So far for August of 2011, most of the climate sites in SE TX are on their way to breaking their hottest monthly temperature FOR ANY MONTH by 2-3 degrees!

Drought:

Things are bad and getting worse by the day with respect to water supply, vegetation, and agricultural impacts. The impacts to agriculture and livestock are approaching severe levels with cattle running out of drinking water from drying creeks and ponds. Vegetation has stopped growing and died in many ranch areas with feed being trucked into from the central plains for cattle. We are really getting into a bad situation quickly and we desperately need widespread rainfall. The majority of irrigation currently is just to keep vegetation alive at this point and with increasing water conservation measures likely vegetation already stressed is going to suffer even more.

Houston has now gone 198 days between 1.0 inch rainfall events breaking the previous record of 192 days from 1917-1918

Only 6.36 inches of rain has fallen in the last 191 days for the City of Houston (IAH) making this by far the driest Feb-Aug 10 period ever. This breaks the previous record by an astounding 6.25 inches of rainfall…that is an amazing record!!! At Hobby Airport for the same time period the record is being broken by 5.17 inches!

The period from August 2010 to August 2011 is now the driest 1-year period ever for the City of Houston.

Water Supply:

For the first time since the drought of 1988 the City of Houston is going to be requesting emergency releases from Lake Conroe to help stabilize the rapid fall that is occurring on Lake Houston (the primary water supply for the City of Houston). This is only the third time ever this action has been required. Water intake pipes on Lake Houston are getting dangerously low to becoming exposed and causing damage to the water supply system. With this action likely next week, the City of Houston will move to Stage 2 water conservation (mandatory water restrictions). This is going to have a significant impact on the lake levels at Conroe as releases begin, and the lake will begin to fall due to the releases that are going to be required to help stop the rapid decline on Lake Houston.

Lake Somerville and Lake Texana are now close to 50% of their capacity and falling. Lake Somerville has lost an astounding 11% of its capacity in the last 3 weeks!

Outlook:

I have really no good news, as any rains over the next 48 hours will likely be focused west of SE TX. 14 day outlook continues to feature below normal rainfall unless something can develop and threaten from the tropics.

NOAA issued a La Nina Watch this week suggesting that the return of cooling in the central Pacific may once again result in La Nina conditions this fall-winter-spring….if this happens rainfall will average below normal through much of this winter and this drought will only worsen if we do not get some kind of tropical system in the next 2 months.

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US National Weather Service Fort Worth Texas

With the passage of the outflow boundary associated with this line of storms, temperatures at DFW have dropped down into the upper 80s. Though Waco has hit 100 today, it does not look like DFW will. The 100 degree streak at DFW appears over, and Waco has set the record for number of consecutive 100 degree days (43).

http://www.facebook.com/US.NationalWeatherService.FortWorth.gov

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Double bummer! No rain out of this and revenge of the '80s!

000 FXUS64

KFWD 112059 AFDFWD

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORT WORTH TX 359 PM CDT THU AUG 11 2011 .DISCUSSION... WITH A DRAMATIC TURN OF EVENTS TODAY...THE 100 DEGREE STREAK AT DFW APPEARS OVER BUT WACO HAS SET THE ALL-TIME RECORD FOR CONSECUTIVE 100 DEGREE DAYS...PASSING 1980

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US National Weather Service Fort Worth Texas

With the passage of the outflow boundary associated with this line of storms, temperatures at DFW have dropped down into the upper 80s. Though Waco has hit 100 today, it does not look like DFW will. The 100 degree streak at DFW appears over, and Waco has set the record for number of consecutive 100 degree days (43).

http://www.facebook....e.FortWorth.gov

You beat me to it!

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KMAF (Midland Odessa airport ASOS) recorded a whopping .37 inch of rain from a thunderstorm yesterday. Although this statistic does not sound impressive, even by normal dry West Texas standards, this storm dropped more than double the .18 inch total rainfall of the previous 319 consecutive days (ten and a half months) from 26 September 2010 to 10 August 2011.

By way of comparison, Yuma, one of the driest cities in America, received 1.06 inch of rain since 26 September 2010, almost double the .55 inch of total rainfall of Odessa over the same period (even after yesterday's thunderstorm), and still registers only 39% of its normal precipitation for this period.

Death Valley has received 1.57 inches of rain since 26 September 2010, not including several days missing reports.

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And another record falls...

CLIMATE...
ANOTHER VERY WARM DAY YESTERDAY HELPED HOUSTON TO REACH AN AVERAGE
TEMPERATURE MILESTONE. THE YEARLY AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FROM JANUARY
1ST THROUGH AUGUST 11TH IS 72.5...MAKING 2011 NOW THE WARMEST YEAR
TO DATE ON RECORD. HERE IS A TABLE OF THE TOP 15 YEARS SINCE 1880
FOR THE PERIOD OF JANUARY 1ST THROUGH AUGUST 11TH...

RANK  VALUE  ENDING DATE
1    72.5   8-11-2011
2    72.4   8-11-1911
3    72.1   8-11-1962
4    72.0   8-11-1953
5    71.9   8-11-2009
6    71.8   8-11-1927 AND 8-11-1957
8    71.7   8-11-1999 AND 8-11-2000
10    71.6   8-11-1950
11    71.5   8-11-2006
12    71.4   8-11-1954 AND 1925
14    71.3   8-11-1963
15    71.2   8-11-1967

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