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Texas/New Mexico/Louisiana/Mexico Obs And Discussion Thread Part 6


Portastorm

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Morning briefing from Jeff:

 

Cold and wet weather for the next several days.

 

Threat for freezing rain and ice is limited across the area.

 

Secondary arctic frontal boundary is approaching the region from the north and will move through over the next several hours. Overnight warm air advection  (southerly winds) did the trick by warming dewpoints into the mid 30’s (+10-20 degrees warmer than 24 hours ago) while surface temperatures only fell 2-3 degrees. This effectively negated any freezing temperatures over the area preventing any freezing rain. Light rain and drizzle will continue through mid to late morning before onset of next surge of cold air which will advect in another very dry low level air mass (dewpoints back into the lower 20’s by tonight).

 

Upper level storm system near Baja will begin to slowly move eastward into TX Saturday with large scale lift increasing. Surface dewpoints Saturday morning (midnight-1000am) will be low across the region and this time cold air advection will be ongoing at the surface instead of warm air advection. If the atmosphere were to precipitate during this period then the opposite effect of this morning would happen with the air temperature cooling toward the dewpoint (evaporative cooling to the wet bulb temperature). This only happens if it is precipitating long and hard enough to allow this process to take place. Models show a strong dry layer in the lowest 100mb of the air mass through the critical period of Saturday morning and this layer should effectively evaporate any falling precipitation and prevent it from reaching the ground. Overall the onset of light rain is out of phase with the potential for maximum wet bulb cooling Saturday morning. Rainfall will onset with the arrival of strong lift after about 1000am and more likely after noon when the surface temperature will be warming into the mid and upper 30’s and stronger warm air advection will be in progress above the surface…end result is a very cold rain.

 

With all that said…will maintain a very slight threat for freezing rain west of a line from Edna to Columbus to College Station to Crockett just in case the rainfall does onset a few hours earlier and the evaporative cooling reduces the air temperature to near freezing for a few hours. If this were to happen surface temperature would only fall to 31-32 allowing some very minor ice accumulation on elevated surfaces. This chance is remote but not non-zero.

 

Will be done with any threats of winter precipitation Saturday afternoon in favor of just cold rain and cold temperatures for the next several days. Overall pattern changes little with several upper air disturbances expected to cross the region producing periods of rainfall. Strongest system will be Saturday night and Sunday with widespread rain expected. Temperatures will remain cold with clouds and rainfall keeping any warming trend muted. Another front arrives Monday and the entire process starts again with the next upper air disturbance moving across on Tuesday and Wednesday with more rainfall. Temperatures will remain in the 40’s and 50’s for highs through next Wednesday with 30’s and 40’s for lows with cloudy skies and periods of rain.   

 

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FWD has some concern for the area north of I-30 and east of I-35 for tomorrow night and it wouldn't take a huge change to see some decent icing.  However, I have been more interested in next week (I always prefer even an outside shot at snow over freezing rain) and FWD throws this out today:

 

ANY PRECIPITATION THAT OCCURS WITH THIS SECOND UPPER TROUGH WILL
LIKELY FALL AS RAIN ON TUESDAY...BUT MAY CHANGE OVER TO SNOW FROM
NORTHWEST TO SOUTHEAST TUESDAY NIGHT. AT THIS TIME 12Z MODEL
GUIDANCE SEEMS TO SUGGEST THIS CHANGE OVER LINE WILL MAKE IT AS
FAR SOUTH AS THE INTERSTATE 20 CORRIDOR BY SUNRISE WEDNESDAY
MORNING. THE SOUTHERN FRINGE OF THIS CHANGE OVER LINE WILL LIKELY
REMAIN A RAIN/SNOW MIX...WITH NO ACCUMULATIONS LIKELY. HOWEVER
FARTHER NORTH...DEEPER INTO THE COLD AIR...SOME LIGHT SNOW
ACCUMULATIONS ARE POSSIBLE. FORECAST SOUNDINGS DO AT LEAST SUPPORT
A RAIN/SNOW POSSIBILITY OVER SLEET OR FREEZING RAIN AT THIS TIME.
WILL KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON THIS TIME PERIOD AS WELL AS THE SOUTHERN
EXTENT OF THE RAIN/SNOW LINE AND THE UPPER TROUGH WILL PLAY A BIG
ROLE ON ACCUMULATIONS AND IMPACTS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SECONDARY
STORM SYSTEM MID-WEEK.

CAVANAUGH

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EWX is in the process of upgrading most of the Hill Country to a Winter Storm Warning. It won't include I-35 or the major cities. 

 

The 2015 USA 100k Championship and Montrail Ultra Cup race is being held just outside Bandera starting tomorrow morning at 7:30 am.  It will be some interesting weather for those that can make it out there for the race. 

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FWD has some concern for the area north of I-30 and east of I-35 for tomorrow night and it wouldn't take a huge change to see some decent icing.  However, I have been more interested in next week (I always prefer even an outside shot at snow over freezing rain) and FWD throws this out today:

 

ANY PRECIPITATION THAT OCCURS WITH THIS SECOND UPPER TROUGH WILL

LIKELY FALL AS RAIN ON TUESDAY...BUT MAY CHANGE OVER TO SNOW FROM

NORTHWEST TO SOUTHEAST TUESDAY NIGHT. AT THIS TIME 12Z MODEL

GUIDANCE SEEMS TO SUGGEST THIS CHANGE OVER LINE WILL MAKE IT AS

FAR SOUTH AS THE INTERSTATE 20 CORRIDOR BY SUNRISE WEDNESDAY

MORNING. THE SOUTHERN FRINGE OF THIS CHANGE OVER LINE WILL LIKELY

REMAIN A RAIN/SNOW MIX...WITH NO ACCUMULATIONS LIKELY. HOWEVER

FARTHER NORTH...DEEPER INTO THE COLD AIR...SOME LIGHT SNOW

ACCUMULATIONS ARE POSSIBLE. FORECAST SOUNDINGS DO AT LEAST SUPPORT

A RAIN/SNOW POSSIBILITY OVER SLEET OR FREEZING RAIN AT THIS TIME.

WILL KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON THIS TIME PERIOD AS WELL AS THE SOUTHERN

EXTENT OF THE RAIN/SNOW LINE AND THE UPPER TROUGH WILL PLAY A BIG

ROLE ON ACCUMULATIONS AND IMPACTS ASSOCIATED WITH THIS SECONDARY

STORM SYSTEM MID-WEEK.

CAVANAUGH

Kinda of hard to believe it can be cold enough for snow (even accumulation?) on Tuesday. Can you tell how long the temp will be below freezing?

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I talk about the southern plains a bit if y'all want to watch, if not...no worries!!

 

Update on the rest of your weekend weather, when will the rain arrive, and how cold?  PLUS, could something wintry be brewing for **PORTIONS** of the SE next week?  Watch the video for more details on YOUR forecast.  Thanks for watching and please hit the invite button on my page to invite  your Facebook friends, I really appreciate it!  Have a great day.  -Chris  

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/ChriswxmanSimmons

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Looks like we might not see the 50's until Friday up here in the north country and then a brief warm up over the weekend.  Then possibly a big system moving across the area with storms and, if the track is just right, snow on the backside? Looks like the EPO will go negative again returning the cold in the longer range.  Will we finally see some high latitude blocking or will this be another batch of transient cold air? 

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This time the signals are pretty strong towards cold reloading and pouring south by the end of the month for a relatively extended period of time (at least 2 weeks). The equatorial convection moving east thanks to the MJO and staying around the dateline seems a pretty good bet.

 

The EPO is forecasted to go negative as well in most of the 12+days guidance. The confidence is lower than the equatorial convection forecast, but given the stronger than normal model consensus, it's pretty high given that it's far out in time, relatively speaking. Guidance is usually too fast these pattern changes, but I would think that past Jan 25th, what could be the highlight of the 14/15 winter season could be developing.

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Interesting. I was monitoring this time frame also. Something to watch if we can squeeze out a bit more moisture from the vort.

 

 

 

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORT WORTH TX
1014 AM CST MON JAN 12 2015

.UPDATE...
VERY FEW UPDATES WERE NEEDED TO THE CURRENT FORECAST. HAVE
INCREASED TEMPS A COUPLE DEGREES TO COINCIDE WITH CURRENT
OBS...BUT THEY SHOULD REMAIN FAIRLY STEADY THROUGH THE DAY WITH
CLOUDY SKIES AND COLD ADVECTION BEHIND THE FRONT THAT PASSED
THROUGH EARLIER THIS MORNING. NORTH WINDS AT 15 TO 20 MPH GUSTING
TO AROUND 25 MPH CAN BE EXPECTED THROUGH THIS AFTERNOON AS
SURFACE RIDGING INCREASES ACROSS THE CWA AS THE PRESSURE GRADIENT
TIGHTENS. WILL CONTINUE TO MONITOR NEW MODEL GUIDANCE FOR THE
VERY SLIGHT POSSIBILITY OF WINTRY PRECIP ON TUESDAY NIGHT INTO
WEDNESDAY.
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Greetings from Northern New Mexico. Currently here about 20 miles N of Santa Fe we have light snow falling, but it is not more than a 'mood snow' at 6000 ft. The light snow showers started just as my fight arrived into Santa Fe early yesterday afternoon. Tomorrow morning I'll drive up to Taos Ski Valley where a bit heavier snow is expected today and particularly tonight as the storm system to the NW wraps up into a closed 500/700mb upper low and taps some moisture streaming in from the Eastern Pacific. We have Winter Storm Warnings/Winter Weather Advisories issued for a lot of New Mexico and the Mountains above 7500 ft are expecting anywhere between a foot to a couple of feet of snow from this storm system.

 

sat_wv_west_loop-12.gif

 

Morning briefing from Jeff:

 

Cloudy and cold conditions will continue for the next 24 hours…

 

BUSH IAH has not reached 50 degrees for a high temperatures since January 7th. In fact the first 12 days of January 2015 show a monthly average temperature of 44 degrees or 8.6 degrees below normal and ranks as the 8th coldest 1-1 to 1-12 period on record. Rainfall has been above average with 2.22 inches recorded thus far in 2015 or .96 of an inch above normal. Of the last 12 days only 2 of those days have recorded highs above 60 degrees (6-7).

 

Another cloudy cold and at times wet day on tap for today as another cold front moved off the coast last night an SW flow aloft continues allowing disturbances to cross the region. One such disturbance is moving across the region currently with a band of light rain in progress mainly along and south of US 59. Expect this rainfall to come to an end this morning with cloudy skies remaining in place through the day as moisture is trapped below the frontal inversion. Expect highs to struggle to reach 50 degrees with continued cold air advection and clouds today.

 

Another disturbance moves across the area early Wednesday morning with another chance of light rain and drizzle. Not expecting much more than .10 to .25 of an inch of rainfall. Temperatures will remain safely above freezing so no concerns with freezing or frozen precipitation either. Clouds look hard to clear Wednesday afternoon yet again and another cloud, cold, and at time wet day is in store with high temperatures around 50 degrees.

 

Subsidence behind the disturbance on Wednesday should finally allow cloud cover to break Thursday morning and a partly cloudy to mostly sunny day both Thursday and Friday. This will result in high temperatures warming into the 60’s for the first time in over week.

 

Clear conditions looks short lived however as the active southern stream jet remains in place and the next upper air system begins to approach over the weekend. Expect clouds to increase Saturday afternoon with rain chances returning Sunday afternoon into Monday. Southerly winds should help to moderate temperatures over the weekend with lows in the 40/50’s and highs in the 60’s.  

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Greetings from Northern New Mexico. Currently here about 20 miles N of Santa Fe we have light snow falling, but it is not more than a 'mood snow' at 6000 ft. The light snow showers started just as my fight arrived into Santa Fe early yesterday afternoon. Tomorrow morning I'll drive up to Taos Ski Valley where a bit heavier snow is expected today and particularly tonight as the storm system to the NW wraps up into a closed 500/700mb upper low and taps some moisture streaming in from the Eastern Pacific. We have Winter Storm Warnings/Winter Weather Advisories issued for a lot of New Mexico and the Mountains above 7500 ft are expecting anywhere between a foot to a couple of feet of snow from this storm system.

 

 

 

Have fun on your Snow-cation, Steve.  As we approach mid-winter, it looks like the only way the rest of us see snow is to hike it to the mountains. 

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This time the signals are pretty strong towards cold reloading and pouring south by the end of the month for a relatively extended period of time (at least 2 weeks). The equatorial convection moving east thanks to the MJO and staying around the dateline seems a pretty good bet.

 

The EPO is forecasted to go negative as well in most of the 12+days guidance. The confidence is lower than the equatorial convection forecast, but given the stronger than normal model consensus, it's pretty high given that it's far out in time, relatively speaking. Guidance is usually too fast these pattern changes, but I would think that past Jan 25th, what could be the highlight of the 14/15 winter season could be developing.

 

I agree. This is very interesting because earlier in the thread I pointed out how (for DFW at least anyway) this winter has closely followed the 1950-51 winter over any other analog despite having very different teleconnective signals and water profiles overall. If this does verify and we are still looking at the coldest part of winter after the 25th, that is exactly what transpired the winter of 1950-51. Then the cold let up for the rest of the winter after that.

 

Also, there has been a very strong stratospheric warming episode over the pole recently which would teleconnect well with this period for coming cold.

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SSWs can just as easily dump to Europe. Think it was Feb 12 or '13 where everybody was pumped and then it went into Europe.

The negative EPO is a hopeful sign. The MJO too. Everything else is kinda meh.

 

I haven't really put much time into the whole SSW thing after initially looking into it.  It is pretty obvious that a lot of people posting about it on the web don't really understand it.  

 

Another analog to consider is '36-37, strong +PDO, weak +AMO, weak +MEI, it had a cold November and warm December.  January doesn't look like it is going to be a great match (looking colder in the east than in '37).  Feb was pretty much avg with a cold March but it was way dry in Feb/March.  I'm not sure any analogs are going to work at this point with off the charts +PDO and record MJO in December.  I really hope we can get something out of the cold shot that looks to come towards the end of January b/c climo starts working against us pretty fast in Feb. 

 

We had some freezing drizzle this morning to add to our car topper snowfall and trace of sleet... this winter has been a letdown so far. 

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Greetings from Northern New Mexico. Currently here about 20 miles N of Santa Fe we have light snow falling, but it is not more than a 'mood snow' at 6000 ft. The light snow showers started just as my fight arrived into Santa Fe early yesterday afternoon. Tomorrow morning I'll drive up to Taos Ski Valley where a bit heavier snow is expected today and particularly tonight as the storm system to the NW wraps up into a closed 500/700mb upper low and taps some moisture streaming in from the Eastern Pacific. We have Winter Storm Warnings/Winter Weather Advisories issued for a lot of New Mexico and the Mountains above 7500 ft are expecting anywhere between a foot to a couple of feet of snow from this storm system.

 

 

 

 

We are going to need pictures, lots of pictures!

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I haven't really put much time into the whole SSW thing after initially looking into it.  It is pretty obvious that a lot of people posting about it on the web don't really understand it.  

 

Another analog to consider is '36-37, strong +PDO, weak +AMO, weak +MEI, it had a cold November and warm December.  January doesn't look like it is going to be a great match (looking colder in the east than in '37).  Feb was pretty much avg with a cold March but it was way dry in Feb/March.  I'm not sure any analogs are going to work at this point with off the charts +PDO and record MJO in December.  I really hope we can get something out of the cold shot that looks to come towards the end of January b/c climo starts working against us pretty fast in Feb. 

 

We had some freezing drizzle this morning to add to our car topper snowfall and trace of sleet... this winter has been a letdown so far.

Looking back, we were spoiled the last five years:

09-10 rocked. Snows in December, February and a march surprise. Heaviest 24 hour snowfall and the first white Christmas since the 20s.

10-11 wasn't as wall to wall but the two months between Mid-Dec to mid-Feb gave us four events and a brutal arctic outbreak in Feb followed by a 6 incher.

11-12 the La Niña that acted like a Niño. The worst of the bunch. Awful.

12-13 6 week period that gave us a few car toppers and a ferocious severe weather, change to snow event on Christmas that caused our curbs to disappear and actual drifts.

13-14 cold but progressive. A bunch of dustings and car toppers with a sleet event that let mounds of sleet 2 feet high from running off the roof.

14-15 November made me think another 13-14 repeat. So far, it's going to be worse than any recent winter since 11-12. Time is running out. SSWs mean little when our window effectively runs out the first week of March.

If the snow totals on the euro are right then we'll be good...... :)

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Yes. But we don't get excited about something that far out.

See, It's already gone on 12z!

I think you might have missed the main point of my post :lol:

However, the system is still there at 12z but it is way out in time and we will probably see more model volatility than normal as the pattern resets. I think the signals are there for the possibility of a big storm, just have to see how things play out.

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