Texas/New Mexico/Louisiana/Mexico Obs And Discussion Thread Part 5

[Ed Lizard]

Ground just wet, distant thunder, vivid lightning to the South, the 2007 Impala is icing over now.

 

Ice on the car, baby steps.

[msp]

CodeMaroon message from Interim Prez Hussey to use extreme caution in 3...2...1...

Yeah, what a joke.

And just started sleeping here in CLL!

Edit: Back to zr, temp 29 on my car

[1900hurricane]

 

MESOSCALE DISCUSSION 0170
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0923 PM CST MON MAR 03 2014

AREAS AFFECTED...S-CNTRL AND SE TX

CONCERNING...FREEZING RAIN

VALID 040323Z - 040830Z

SUMMARY...FREEZING RAIN THREAT WILL EXPAND SPATIALLY THROUGH LATE
EVENING AND EARLY TUE MORNING ACROSS S-CNTRL AND SE TX. RATES OF
0.05-0.1 INCH/HR WILL BE COMMON...WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS
POSSIBLE IN ASSOCIATION WITH THUNDERSTORMS.

DISCUSSION...SWATH OF CONVECTION EXTENDING FROM THE SRN HILL COUNTRY
EWD ALONG I-10 TO JUST W OF HOU APPEARS TO HAVE INITIATED IN
RESPONSE TO A WEAK UPPER IMPULSE OVER THE CENTRAL TX COAST /AS OF
03Z/...AND STRENGTHENING WAA REGIME ABOVE 2.5 KM AGL PRECEDING A
STRONGER VORT MAX APPROACHING THE BIG BEND. THIS IS OCCURRING MUCH
EARLIER THAN A MAJORITY OF 12Z/00Z MODEL GUIDANCE HAS
FORECAST...WITH EXCEPTION TO THE 12Z WRF-NSSL AND WRF-NMM
RUNS...WHICH APPEAR TO HAVE A SOMEWHAT REASONABLE DEPICTION OF
ONGOING ACTIVITY BUT ARE STILL SLOW WITH RESPECT TO OBSERVATIONS.

SFC OBS INDICATE TEMPERATURES ARE GENERALLY NEAR/ABOVE FREEZING
WHERE PRECIPITATION IS ONGOING CURRENTLY...WITH SFC FREEZING LINE
ANALYZED FROM NEAR TPL SEWD TO 20 N HOU AS OF 03Z. COMBINATION OF
WET-BULB COOLING /VIA ELEVATED CONVECTIVE PRECIPITATION FALLING INTO
RELATIVELY DRIER SUB-CLOUD LAYER/...AND MODEST LOW-LEVEL CAA OUT OF
THE N/NE...SHOULD RESULT IN TEMPERATURES FALLING BELOW FREEZING OVER
THE NEXT 2-3 HRS ACROSS THE REGION. THIS WILL OCCUR
CONTEMPORANEOUSLY WITH A CONTINUED INCREASE IN FORCING FOR ASCENT AS
THE AFOREMENTIONED SHORTWAVE IMPULSE MOVES OUT OF THE BIG BEND...AND
FACILITATES AN INCREASE IN PRECIPITATION COVERAGE OVER THE NEXT
SEVERAL HRS. OBSERVATIONAL TRENDS SUGGEST THE GREATEST THREAT FOR
FREEZING RAIN APPEARS TO BE FOCUSED NEAR/N OF THE I-10 CORRIDOR FROM
THE SRN HILL COUNTRY TOWARDS HOU.

..ROGERS.. 03/04/2014


ATTN...WFO...LCH...HGX...FWD...EWX...

LAT...LON 29709448 29579566 29579705 29739802 29929861 30399854
30689786 30819750 30899668 30909601 30779531 30599468
30439424 30149397 29869402 29709448 

[DoctorMu]

sleet and freezing rain beginning in CLL

[1900hurricane]

From one of the local guys:

 

 

That'll make it fun going to class tomorrow!

[1900hurricane]

Texas A&M might have to cave if the latest HRRR verifies. Wow.

 

[Ed Lizard]

Bed time. Very light rain.  Oddly enough, same as an hour ago, ground, hood of the car just wet, roof of car iced over, and leaves on the cycad (sort of a plam looking fern) are iced over.

[CranberryWX]

Freezing rain at 30F in my back yard. Side walk is about half ice half wet. Metal objects are glazed. Had thunder around 10 PM.

[1900hurricane]

Yeah, I'm starting to get ice accumulating on things too. Figured I'd bring the radar over to this page too. Really starting to fill in now.

 

[Ed Lizard]

Driveway just wet, but branch on neighbor's tree has sagged sufficiently into our driveway that if my wife left the garage she'd hit it.

No idea if it'll snap. Ground just wet may be a product of marginal/barely freezing temps.  Warm over the weekend as well.

Did see reports of 59 in Cleveland area closed and part of 290 closed, but that is further North and probably a degree or three cooler

[CranberryWX]

Temperature just slightly below freezing at 31.5, still light freezing rain falling. Temp hovered around 31 all night. Tree branches coated with ice and sagging, even grass has ice, but concrete is wet or slushy.

As of 7 AM I got 0.54" of precip. Had to bring the gauge in to melt the ice, about half the total was frozen.

Surprised my son's school was open. Waiting until daylight to head into work....

[Srain]

Trees and vehicles covered in ice. The main travel issues are N of Harris County. Trees are snapping under the weight of the ice further N in the Austin/Waller/Grimes/Burleson County areas. Currently Centerpoint Energy report 40K customers without power mostly in NW Harris County in the Jersey Village and Cypress area. This could have been much worse had temperatures fallen into the upper 20's.

[canderson]

My parents in NE Texas have devastation, essentially, in their county. Hundreds were trapped on I-20 yesterday and there are probably thousands of pine trees down, pulling so many transformers and poles with them. Many, many roads were impassable still today.

[Ed Lizard]

Power out, so I slept in.  Came in around 9:30, roads were fine, iced/bet over trees were cool.

 

Same storm but w/ Jnauary sun angle, would have stayed below freezing longer and been a much bigger deal.

[aggiegeog]

Roads in Tyler are still somewhat icy this morning and I had some freezing fog at my place in Lindale with temps in the mid 20s there.

[wxmx]

Strongish piece of energy will roll thru Nern MX next few days, so things could get interesting weather wise.

 

But in the meantime, near Monterrey there has been some geological activity for quite some time now...periods of earthquake swarms. Today we had a 4.3 Richter about 80 miles east of Monterrey. There have been > 15 3.0+ quakes in the last week. I haven't felt any, but a lot of people have, especially those in the east and south of the metro area.

 

This area hadn't been active for many years, I have lived here 20 years now, and tectonic movements were pretty sparse, and of very low magnitude.

 

[Quixotic1]

wxmx do they frack in Monterrey?

[wxmx]

wxmx do they frack in Monterrey?

Not that I know of...Theoretically shale fracking should only be allowed after new laws are approved later this year. This is a rich shale oil/gas region, so that's a valid possibility.

[CranberryWX]

Not that I know of...Theoretically shale fracking should only be allowed after new laws are approved later this year. This is a rich shale oil/gas region, so that's a valid possibility.

LOL...I been involved with fracturing for 30 years in multiple areas and have yet to have an earthquake happen under my feet.

[CranberryWX]

Hey Native Houstonians...when does it get warm here for good? When I moved here from the north I was expected it to be consistently in 70s by March....I had another freeze this morning in my back yard. j/k....

[1900hurricane]

Nice to see somewhat legit rain for once. We're only slightly over two months into the year and many places are already down an entire month's worth or more of rainfall. Now we just need the fabled El Nino to develop and work its magic.

[Ed Lizard]

Most of the earthquakes that might even be remotely related to hydraulic fracture stimulation are so small that most people don't notice them.

 

 

Anyway....

 

 

15 years old study, while an El Niño may indeed form, SETX/SWLA storm frequency is not strongly affected, as one would expect.

 

CPC has a statement up, 50% chance of an ENSO, which, if mild to moderate, well 2004 was a good year for Florida.  If severe, usually a boring season.  But apparently, not as big an affect on us.  I enjoyed 2004, another year with a major landfalling in Florida, where the roads are good, the homes are well constructed to meet wind codes, and infrastructure is present, I wouldn't mind that at all.

And although few on the forum were alive then, the last major to hit in the HGX CWA was a storm of non-tropical origin during an El Niño.

 

[DoctorMu]

Yeah, El Nino's rains are more likely to bless us in the winter.

[Srain]

Yeah, El Nino's rains are more likely to bless us in the winter.

Daily Record rainfall event set in College Station of .89 inches where the previous record was broken set in 1921. Congrats!

[Ed Lizard]

Edit to add was on KHOU-TV 11 forum...

 

Look at the GFS closely Sunday afternoon into early Monday.  Looks like timing just might be a smidge off, light precip ending as magic 5400 dm 1000-500 mb and 0ºC 850 mb lines move into North and Central Texas, and precip is light, but a snow flurry up CLL way doesn't seem 100% impossible.  Glass 1/64th optimistic on flurries NW of Houston.

 

As far as Saturday severe goes, a decent 700 mb cap at 1 pm CDT weakens appreciably by 7 pm CDT, but GFS never shows much in the way of low level lapse rates.  Decent (not super-decent, just decent) mid level lapse rates and winds might support a hail threat, but GFS would not support a significant wind gust or tornado threat.  And GFS is more optimistic than NAM.

 

http://weather.admin.niu.edu/machine/fcstsound.html

EDIT to ADD

Noted above capping weakens significantly by 0Z Sunday (Saturday evening) but low level lapse rates are lame.  Probably a result of the miserably cold Winter.   Low level winds off an icy cold GOMEX

[Srain]

The SPC has placed portions of the Eastern half of Texas in a Slight Risk of severe storms beginning Saturday afternoon near the Hill Country as the capping inversion begins to break and strong to possibly severe storms with damaging winds and hail and march SE from the Austin area towards Metro Houston and E Texas Saturday evening.

[Quixotic1]

100% chance of rain in the FWD point forecast. Been awhile since we've had that.

[DFWWeather]

Interesting NAM solution with upper level low tomorrow. FWD talked about it in this morning's AFD. It has accumulating wet snowfall across the Metroplex westward.

[brettjrob]

First legit, surface-based sups of the season now underway in the Big Country. Several hail spikes on KDYX, and reports of golfballs near Lake Coleman. Really just a tease, as we won't be seeing any more of this for at least a week to 10 days. Bah.

[ZackH]

First legit, surface-based sups of the season now underway in the Big Country. Several hail spikes on KDYX, and reports of golfballs near Lake Coleman. Really just a tease, as we won't be seeing any more of this for at least a week to 10 days. Bah.

 

I still think we are going to see some marginal sups/severe storms in the TX to southern KS area on Thursday, but probably not very chaseable unless you're a local.