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


Portastorm

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The SREF did well early last March down here with our freezing rain event, so it may be on to something. Time will tell. The 00Z ECMWF certainly looks anything but warm later next week for all of our Region. I am sooo ready for Spring like weather... ;)

 

 

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The SREF did well early last March down here with our freezing rain event, so it may be on to something. Time will tell. The 00Z ECMWF certainly looks anything but warm later next week for all of our Region. I am sooo ready for Spring like weather... ;)

 

 

 

The 00Z Euro EPS looks pretty moist for next week as well.  The mean has accumulating frozen QPF for almost all of Texas, only leaving out the Brownsville area, and a mean of 2"+ for nearly half the state.  The individual members have some big time dumps, so we might not be finished with winter weather after this first system  :weenie:  :snowing:

 

Also, the Colorado front range looks to get hammered! I wish I could break for a quick trip up to Winter Park. 

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I'm still cautiously optimistic we will see something Sunday night through Monday night. However, it is concerning the ECWMF 0z operational continues to warm to the point where now it is basically just forecasting a cold slushy rain event. The current FWD NWS forecasted temperatures are not cold enough to support a high-impact winter storm. Their coldest is 30°F with 20s coming the Monday night after precip shuts down. With winds up as much as forecasted sublimation becomes more of a mitigating factor. Now there are several models, GFS, among them have temperatures in the 20s and that is concerning. If that does pan out then we could see a high-impact event. Temperatures 30°F and above will see some frozen precip, but it will be slush melting/sublimating mess and will be a minor headache nothing more. Hopefully, all of this will get better resolved in future runs. I would like to see the ECMWF trend colder by several degrees for a little higher confidence.

 

I've seen several sources (not here) but around the area trying to compare this to the December 2013 event. Not sure I agree with that. For one thing, the incoming airmass is not as cold as the 2013 event. Furthermore, QPF was higher overall for that event with a stronger system in general.

 

Also, I've seen some talk from various sources that this airmass is very strong and bitterly cold. Not really at least not for North Texas. Temperatures would have to be in the teens and single digits for that to hold true. We are talking temps in the middle to upper 20s at worst. Not even in record cold territory.

 

As much as I love ice and snow, I hope I am wrong and its the worst ice storm ever, but realistically I think this to be something way less than 2013. At worst, maybe, just maybe a 1/10 to 1/4 of ice/sleet which would be borderline WS Warning criteria more Advisory criteria, but leaning more toward the lesser amounts (at this time). 

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Surprised that fwd mentioned power issues when the AFD this morning said that as of right now it was just a borderline advisory event. Time will tell where it sets up for sure, an interesting weekend ahead for us in the metroplex. I don't forsee icemageddon 2.0 with the cobblestone ice sticking around for a week like Dec. 2013 but I could see a lot of 3 day weekends or folks working from home Monday in the metro

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Not much change for my thoughts for the short and not so short term. For the mid and longer term (8+ day) I have seen a trend with the models...while yesterday and the days before had a consolidating huge Aleutian ridge and an AK Gulf low, from 0z onwards there has been a trend of quickly migrating that ridge towards AK, reloading the pattern, with a slightly retrograding ridge and a central CONUS based trough in the means, like I had suspected and voiced in my previous thoughts. It looks that there'll be winter until at least March 10th.

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Not much change for my thoughts for the short and not so short term. For the mid and longer term (8+ day) I have seen a trend with the models...while yesterday and the days before had a consolidating huge Aleutian ridge and an AK Gulf low, from 0z onwards there has been a trend of quickly migrating that ridge towards AK, reloading the pattern, with a slightly retrograding ridge and a central CONUS based trough in the means, like I had suspected and voiced in my previous thoughts. It looks that there'll be winter until at least March 10th.

 

Even back in January it was a pretty safe bet that the last 1/2 of February would be colder than the first 1/2 for the Central US.  However, March has always been a wildcard in my book but I like the way you are thinking.  I'll have to revisit the data this weekend and see if anything for March jumps out at me.

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SHV has my high at 31 on Monday. That map above from FWD looks like the NAM all other models show NE TX with a major icing or sleet event.

 

My experience since moving to DFW is that FWD is always very conservative when forecasting winter weather events.  It almost always works out in their favor but they have been left scrambling a few times hoisting watches and then warnings quickly as events rolled in.  IIRC, DC was pretty much the same way.    

 

One thing from the 12z GFS that sticks out to me, it keeps DFW basically below freezing all day Tuesday with about 0.10" of precipitation falling.  If something significant materializes Sunday night and Monday, then there doesn't look to be any recovery on Tuesday and maybe even some stat padding.  Then we get a very brief warm up Wednesday and Thursday before another round of winter weather... snow on top of ice?  :weenie:

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My experience since moving to DFW is that FWD is always very conservative when forecasting winter weather events.  It almost always works out in their favor but they have been left scrambling a few times hoisting watches and then warnings quickly as events rolled in.  IIRC, DC was pretty much the same way.    

 

One thing from the 12z GFS that sticks out to me, it keeps DFW basically below freezing all day Tuesday with about 0.10" of precipitation falling.  If something significant materializes Sunday night and Monday, then there doesn't look to be any recovery on Tuesday and maybe even some stat padding.  Then we get a very brief warm up Wednesday and Thursday before another round of winter weather... snow on top of ice?  :weenie:

If we get significant icing it also tends to hold onto the cold for much longer than anticipated so we will see if we even get the mid week warm up. Even if we do it will only be into the 40s. It will not take much cooling at all for freezing temps for the late week storm.

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Even though there's pretty good consensus between the models around the first cold wave for the DFW area, there's a different story for my backyard. An astonishingly 9C (yes, that's celsius) difference between the 12z GFS (Tue 12z 850 temps around 11C, the coldest for the first cold wave) and the 18z NAM (Tue 06z 850 temps around 2C, at hour 84 with CAA still, so it's likely to go a little colder). Even at the surface there's a 10F difference (49F vs 39F). SREF is similar to the NAM. The Euro and GGEM are in the middle of the pack, which seems like a good compromise. 

 

As a backstory, I have noticed that the GFS has a warm bias from around 24h to 120h, while the NAM has been most of the time colder than verification. My guess is that the former underestimates CAD, while the latter overemphasizes it's importance.

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Even though there's pretty good consensus between the models around the first cold wave for the DFW area, there's a different story for my backyard. An astonishingly 9C (yes, that's celsius) difference between the 12z GFS (Tue 12z 850 temps around 11C, the coldest for the first cold wave) and the 18z NAM (Tue 06z 850 temps around 2C, at hour 84 with CAA still, so it's likely to go a little colder). Even at the surface there's a 10F difference (49F vs 39F). SREF is similar to the NAM. The Euro and GGEM are in the middle of the pack, which seems like a good compromise. 

 

As a backstory, I have noticed that the GFS has a warm bias from around 24h to 120h, while the NAM has been most of the time colder than verification. My guess is that the former underestimates CAD, while the latter overemphasizes it's importance.

 

Yea, the new GFS seems to have a pretty strong cold bias in the medium range, esp. when snow cover is in play.  However, I have seen it mentioned a number of times that it seems too warm with the boundary layer at short range for winter weather events.  

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0z trends drier for this event some say?

 

Meh, the NAM was wetter and the GFS was 0.50 - 0.75 for the DFW area and NE.  That is less than 18z but pretty much in line with the 21z SREF numbers.  We will see fluctuations in QPF output from here out given the nature of the setup, the models just won't be able to pin down the individual impulses that are kicking out.  

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I thought you swore off the model watching biz? :lol:

I had a relapse tonight.....but only the GFS. I deep sixed my subscription service so there's no Euro access. So, I was serious......truly it was for the good of the board. Nobody wants to hear me complain about how bad this winter sucks. So I removed my tools and lurked.

Every time I think I'm out, this winter pulls me back in!

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Meh, the NAM was wetter and the GFS was 0.50 - 0.75 for the DFW area and NE.  That is less than 18z but pretty much in line with the 21z SREF numbers.  We will see fluctuations in QPF output from here out given the nature of the setup, the models just won't be able to pin down the individual impulses that are kicking out.  

 

Still quite significant numbers for a winter weather event. Assuming it all fell as sleet it would be a 3:1 ratio (so a December 2013 icemaggdon repeat) or if was all freezing rain (infrastructure problems galore and skating rinks). I have no doubt a Winter Storm Warning will be issued. Offices will be trying to refrain from Ice Storm Warnings since those in conjunction with Winter Storm Warnings cause a lot of confusion. 

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Still quite significant numbers for a winter weather event. Assuming it all fell as sleet it would be a 3:1 ratio (so a December 2013 icemaggdon repeat) or if was all freezing rain (infrastructure problems galore and skating rinks). I have no doubt a Winter Storm Warning will be issued. Offices will be trying to refrain from Ice Storm Warnings since those in conjunction with Winter Storm Warnings cause a lot of confusion. 

WOW, I thought I couldn't see a Dec 2013 repeat for quiet a long long time. But I remember that event was mainly freezing rain, which cause massive power outrages. Sleet shouldn't be too bad unless it's really heavy!

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