Texas/New Mexico/Louisiana/Mexico Obs And Discussion Thread Part 7

[Quincy]

Maybe the wedge only looked like it touched down.

I don't know. I was on that storm for quite a while and I never saw anything conclusive. Just a few funnel clouds and a brief cone tornado near Blum. Aside from a couple of damage photos, I didn't see anything that indicated sig tor damage. I watched some of the "wedge" videos and they're all the same, low light, partially obscured and really not very conclusive at all.

I'm not saying that they won't confirm EF-1 damage somewhere, but I'm very skeptical that there actually was a large and/or strong tornado on the ground.

[Msalgado]

I witnessed two possible tornadoes yesterday.  Out of the two, neither had a solid funnel at all, and the first (directly south of Rising Star ~3:00 pm) was a brief spin up under a rapidly rotating wall cloud.  My chase partner and I saw spinning dust underneath, but that's a tough sell (or buy).  The second was just outside of Stephenville and thats the picture I posted in the other thread.  That one I have more faith in but its not exactly a great sell either.

[Msalgado]

We spotted a couple of landspoutish funnel clouds earlier here at TAMU.  Time lapse of the clouds definitely shows the shear that caused these brief spin ups.

[DoctorMu]

A few reported south of CLL.  I saw a small funnel looking SE   Not even close to touching the ground.  

[bubba hotep]

DFW could be on the way to smashing the record low high for today? Record low high for the day is 61 set in 1932.

[aggiegeog]

DFW could be on the way to smashing the record low high for today? Record low high for the day is 61 set in 1932.

Same here in Tyler. 63 is the current record and we were at 60 at midnight and 57 now with showers ongoing doubt we see anything above 60. Feels amazing for late April. Rural areas will likely see low 40s tonight around here if skies clear fast enough and the wind dies down.

[NTXYankee]

Definitely a typical pattern I am used to seeing up north this time of year but not here. Seems like the pattern is delayed around here with this more typical in February and March. Will be interesting to see if this extends our severe weather season and delays our ridge of death by end of May. CPC has us on the fringe of below normal temps through summer with the bulk being in west Texas the typical hot areas.

[Roy]

How soon does the death ridge usually set up here? I figured end of May, but if you say it delays it until then, it must typically go earlier...mid-Mayish?

[NTXYankee]

How soon does the death ridge usually set up here? I figured end of May, but if you say it delays it until then, it must typically go earlier...mid-Mayish?

Not exactly sure.  I moved here in 2011 when the hottest summer on record hit and so not really sure what is a normal Texas pattern as we've been in the drought so long and the ridge always showed up early along with the heat so this pattern seems very odd to me, but may be more normal?  I would say end of May would be typical but maybe not. 

[NTXYankee]

Impressive results since 4/1

 

[bubba hotep]

It appears that DFW smashed the record low high for today of 61 by recording 57, a -22 departure from normal for the date!

 

CLIMATE REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORT WORTH TX
421 PM CDT TUE APR 28 2015


...................................

...THE DALLAS FORT WORTH CLIMATE SUMMARY FOR APRIL 28 2015...
VALID AS OF 0400 PM LOCAL TIME.

CLIMATE NORMAL PERIOD 1981 TO 2010
CLIMATE RECORD PERIOD 1898 TO 2015


WEATHER ITEM OBSERVED TIME RECORD YEAR NORMAL DEPARTURE LAST
VALUE (LST) VALUE VALUE FROM YEAR
NORMAL
..................................................................
TEMPERATURE (F)
TODAY
MAXIMUM 57 259 PM 93 1989 79 -22 83
MINIMUM 52 1016 AM 42 1979 59 -7 65
AVERAGE 55 

[bubba hotep]

Definitely a typical pattern I am used to seeing up north this time of year but not here. Seems like the pattern is delayed around here with this more typical in February and March. Will be interesting to see if this extends our severe weather season and delays our ridge of death by end of May. CPC has us on the fringe of below normal temps through summer with the bulk being in west Texas the typical hot areas.

 

This summer will be very interesting, esp. if the -AMO continues to establish. I'll have to go back and look but I don't remember seeing too many +MEI/+PDO/-AMO combo summers. My first guess would obviously be cooler and wetter than normal but I am much more interested in the coming winter... 

 

Also, there appears to be some clustering of tropical system landfalls from the upper Texas coast over to Louisiana. I wouldn't be surprised if our hurricane season doesn't seem some what active, even if the season as a whole for the Atlantic basin is way below normal.   

[Roy]

While I am skeptical, I am hopeful the GFS insane QPF totals verify for northwest TX. They need a lot of rain still. It has really been spitting out lots of rain.

[bubba hotep]

While I am skeptical, I am hopeful the GFS insane QPF totals verify for northwest TX. They need a lot of rain still. It has really been spitting out lots of rain.

 

Euro and Euro EPS are also pretty wet over Texas, the upcoming pattern looks to favor heavy rain but maybe not so much svr weather. It will probably be a lot like this last go round with a lot of days not coming into focus until mid morning or early afternoon. 

[Roy]

Been following the severe threads, and it does not appear to be a big severe threat time period, but we will see if that changes. Our window is closing as summer comes quickly.

[David Reimer]

This probably won't be a typical summer in Texas (at least like the last few). With El Nino continuing to become established I wouldn't be surprised if we stayed wet well into June, maybe longer. 

[bubba hotep]

The Euro & Euro EPS are both indicating a nice stretch of rain coming up for Texas. Looks like like widespread 3 - 5" across N.Texas. FWD seems to be warming up to this

 

[bubba hotep]

Looks like another round of drought busting is on the way

 

[jhamps10]

Looks like another round of drought busting is on the way

 

 

 

bring it on! hoping the NW areas that still need a real real good heavy soaker gets it this time, Palo Pinto, Wise, Jack counties especially... if in the right spot a good soaker could send Lake Granbury over the top for the first time in years! now how long it would stay there could be a different story but that's water politics in texas for ya lol

[Roy]

Let's hope so. Haven't seen rain totals like that in just a few days since I left the desert. If there won't be severe weather, then bring the flood. Areas just northwest of here still need a lot of rain. 

 

Hopefully the NAM is wrong and the GFS and Euro are right. NAM has virtually no QPF of note.

[jm1220]

Tons of rain around Austin tonight-Camp Mabry is up to 2" of rain as of 9PM and west of town closer to Lake Travis must be over 3" by now. The southeast side of town though near the airport has little yet-it's all on the west and north sides. 

[jm1220]

This is a good site to track rain amounts near Austin-some places near and west of downtown closing in on 5 inches.

 

http://kxan.com/weather/austin-area-rainfall-totals/

[jhamps10]

Looks like the 1st round as usual DFW is in a shaft zone with Oklahoma and areas South getting the good rains so far, still early but not seeing how this helps the lakes west of DFW any with the way this setup is right now... may have to pin our hopes on the weekend i guess

[Roy]

12z GFS spits out 10 inches of QPF over DFW by next Friday. LOL! Not getting fooled again. While I got some okay rain last night, it was not anywhere near what needed to fall for the QPF forecasts from the models and HPC to be correct, and once again, the areas west of the metro were shafted and the lakes got near nothing. It's frankly a good bet that no matter what the models show, things will transition to Oklahoma getting most of it like they every other time. But, at least we are getting rain this year.

[jhamps10]

12z GFS spits out 10 inches of QPF over DFW by next Friday. LOL! Not getting fooled again. While I got some okay rain last night, it was not anywhere near what needed to fall for the QPF forecasts from the models and HPC to be correct, and once again, the areas west of the metro were shafted and the lakes got near nothing. It's frankly a good bet that no matter what the models show, things will transition to Oklahoma getting most of it like they every other time. But, at least we are getting rain this year.

 

LOL 10".... not bying that one.... not one bit.. Unless Saturday comes in heavy I don't see a huge amount of rain like HPC... I could see the 2-4" forecasts made by the media verifying though... 

[Roy]

I think 2 inches is certainly possible, and that's nothing to sneeze at, especially if some can fall in our western counties that need it most. Looks like my area got about .40 last night, so close to a half-inch at least.

[Chinook]

Storm total rainfall near Austin last night: 3.3" in northwest Austin (24 hour total)

 

 

 

24-hour total of rain in west Texas, south of Lubbock, on Monday-Tuesday. Radar estimates 13.5" south of Tahoka. Red colors are 5" +

 

[jhamps10]

I think 2 inches is certainly possible, and that's nothing to sneeze at, especially if some can fall in our western counties that need it most. Looks like my area got about .40 last night, so close to a half-inch at least.

 

yeah, which looking at the radar it did rain decently over Lake Bridgeport which really needed the water most in North Texas right now, with some areas in western Wise county just north of the lake getting nearly 2.5" followed by PK lake that reportedly will get a big boost thanks to the Monday Night rains south of Lubbock as that actually fell in the Brazos basin which flows into PK lake... 

[Roy]

Oh, I did not know the rain around Lubbock would even impact PK, so that's good. As for the totals around Lubbock, coming from Midland before I moved here, it will be interesting to see how full Lake J.B. Thomas gets. It's now the fullest it has been since I believe they said 1968!

[jhamps10]

Oh, I did not know the rain around Lubbock would even impact PK, so that's good. As for the totals around Lubbock, coming from Midland before I moved here, it will be interesting to see how full Lake J.B. Thomas gets. It's now the fullest it has been since I believe they said 1968!

 

Yeah, David Finfrock tweeted about that, not sure I'm buying it personally but when it comes from someone who's been working here since the 60's I think I'll put some heavy weight to it