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

[raindancewx]

ABQ NWS reported 1.7" snow at the airport on Twitter but..."MM" i.e. Missing for their daily/monthly summary page. Is it going to be appearing later or is that just insanity to expect consistency on my end?

[aggiegeog]

I got measurable snow. Not sure if the airport did though. Still snowing, but this is how the resorts of NM have done so far.

Sandia Peak - 5"

Ski Taos - 6"

Red River - 7"

Ski Apache - 5.5"

Sipapu - 0"

Angel Fire - 5"

Santa Fe - 7"

Sipapu reported 6".

Update: up to 8" as of this morning.

[jm1220]

2" of rain with the storms overnight here in SW Austin. 

 

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

[raindancewx]

The reports show most of ABQ got 3-6" with some places that missed both snow bands or got both bands getting 5-10" or 1-2". I got four inches. Airport got 4.4" as of 5 am, maybe a touch more after.

 

Totals are consistent with AMO+ El Nino years now, which average 5" snow in Albuquerque.

 

Storm totals so far - 

 

Pajarito - 10" 

Santa Fe - 15"

Taos - 13"

Red River - 8"

Angel Fire - 8"

Sipapu - 11"

Enchanted Forrest - 12"

Ski Apache - 15.5"

Sandia - 10"

[bubba hotep]

The reports show most of ABQ got 3-6" with some places that missed both snow bands or got both bands getting 5-10" or 1-2". I got four inches. Airport got 4.4" as of 5 am, maybe a touch more after.

 

Totals are consistent with AMO+ El Nino years now, which average 5" snow in Albuquerque.

 

Storm totals so far - 

 

Pajarito - 10" 

Santa Fe - 15"

Taos - 13"

Red River - 8"

Angel Fire - 8"

Sipapu - 11"

Enchanted Forrest - 12"

Ski Apache - 15.5"

Sandia - 10"

 

Nice! When I was out there a couple of weeks ago the only snow that was left was on the higher peaks north of town. Looks like some more snow for the area Monday night and maybe a little on Tuesday. Hopefully, the local trail runners are breaking trail tomorrow and Tuesday morning so that I have something to follow out into the mountains on Tuesday afternoon. 

[Jebman]

Ski resorts should do well in the West this winter, no shortage of Pacific moisture.

Hopefully, California can get some drought relief.

[1900hurricane]

Picked up another 5" of rain. Not bad.

[bubba hotep]

Looks like another decent system around Christmas to pad the rainfall stats before '15 goes in the record books. 

[aggiegeog]

Good snow up there.

[aggiegeog]

I got over 6" of rain here.

[raindancewx]

It looks like the final number for today in ABQ (airport) was 3.6" snow, 1.8" yesterday, so 5.4" for December. Pretty good little storm for the city.

[Quixotic1]

So, anybody worried yet?

[aggiegeog]

Sipapu reporting 22" since Saturday. At least some not too far away are having a good winter.

[Quixotic1]

Sipapu reporting 22" since Saturday. At least some not too far away are having a good winter.

 

Yeah it should be a banner year out west.  I'm not panicking yet.  Just antsy.  Really this is easier to take than last year's December.  We had such a brutal November it teased us.  DFW has one freeze.  

[aggiegeog]

I am still confident that we will have a good winter, but before we can we will need to see the warm anomalies ease and snow build down the Plains. Though a rouge system tracking to our south could always give us a pre-game surprise. I am looking at winter really setting in after mid-Jan and lasting though early March. 

[raindancewx]

One of the methods for forecasting that seems to work well for Albuquerque is to see what the monsoon did in combination with ENSO. With 5.4" at the airport, every El Nino winter following an active monsoon in Albuquerque (>4.3" rain June 15-Sept 30) has had >=4.9" snow in at least one month including this El Nino.

 

I used the monsoon rule last winter to guide my expectations for snowiest month and it worked. It implies, at least right now, that Dec 15 is unlikely to be our snowiest month of the Oct-May season, pending more snow this month of course.

 

[bubba hotep]

I was able to get my snow fix in yesterday while doing some running in the mountains outside of Santa Fe in the afternoon! 

 

 

 

[Quixotic1]

Nice pics!

[Quixotic1]

Perhaps some good news?

 

http://forecast.weather.gov/product.php?site=FWD&issuedby=FWD&product=AFD&format=CI&version=1&glossary=1

 

ONE NOTE IS THAT WHEN THESE BROAD TROUGHS DEVELOP OVER THE

COUNTRY THEY USUALLY PORTEND A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER PATTERN. THIS

OCCURS AS THEY GRADUALLY FILL WITH COLDER AIR AT THE SURFACE WHICH

EVENTUALLY ENHANCES THE BAROCLINICITY...OR AVAILABLE ENERGY...FOR

SOUTHERN STREAM STORM SYSTEMS TO INTENSIFY. THAT IS WHAT THE

EXTENDED MODELS SHOW...WITH THE ECMWF/GFS/CANADIAN ALL INDICATING

A POWERFUL STORM SYSTEM APPROACHING THE REGION A COUPLE OF DAYS

AFTER CHRISTMAS WHICH WOULD INCREASE HEAVY RAIN CHANCES AHEAD OF

IT AND BRING COLDER TEMPERATURES IN ITS WAKE. THERE IS STILL A

LOT OF TIME TO SEE HOW THE SPECIFICS IN THIS SYSTEM EVOLVE IN THE

MODEL DATA BUT IT WILL BE ONE TO WATCH.

[bubba hotep]

I don't think you are going to miss much, it looks like a cool down with the AO/NAO and EPO briefly going negative. Then a warm up into Christmas ugh . Maybe some relief as we head into January...

I'm growing optimistic that we could be shifting to the cooler side of this setup heading into January. However, don't expect to hear anything about it since the overall pattern will still be East Coast torch. Huge mountain snows in the West and maybe we finally start seeing some legit threats down our way.

[aggiegeog]

I'm growing optimistic that we could be shifting to the cooler side of this setup heading into January. However, don't expect to hear anything about it since the overall pattern will still be East Coast torch. Huge mountain snows in the West and maybe we finally start seeing some legit threats down our way.

Yep, it is looking like the post-Christmas storm is going to be the beginning of the pattern shifting our way. Maybe no Arctic air initially until we get a -AO, but this time of year as long as we are under the longwave trough an active STJ can pull down enough cold for winter fun. No one really wants true Arctic air anyways as that is dry and miserable after a couple days.

[raindancewx]

El Nino years with warm AMO values have historically seen some pretty big storms move through the SW in the last week of December. AMO was a lot higher/warmer in Nov 2015 than Nov 2014 so I'd watch the storm that seems to be showing up around Dec 26-28. It also fits in with a theory of mine that winter storms cycle through the SW every ~45 days or so with the MJO. We had a big storm in NM on Nov 15-16, after several smaller pulses right before, so you'd expect storminess Dec 26-30 roughly speaking.

[Chinook]

El Nino years with warm AMO values have historically seen some pretty big storms move through the SW in the last week of December.

Raindancewx, the most recent ECMWF/GFS/Canadian all predict a strong low in New Mexico in about 10 days. By the way, that's in the last week of December. GFS snow totals at Roswell are fun to look at.

[bubba hotep]

El Nino years with warm AMO values have historically seen some pretty big storms move through the SW in the last week of December. AMO was a lot higher/warmer in Nov 2015 than Nov 2014 so I'd watch the storm that seems to be showing up around Dec 26-28. It also fits in with a theory of mine that winter storms cycle through the SW every ~45 days or so with the MJO. We had a big storm in NM on Nov 15-16, after several smaller pulses right before, so you'd expect storminess Dec 26-30 roughly speaking.

What source are you using for AMO? I did some poking around using Klotzbach & Gray for AMO. It comes in as negative and has been so for almost a year now. If you filter warm ENSO (MEI >1) by +PDO and -AMO then you get a pattern that matches pretty well. It is interesting that in many of those years S. California is left out of the action until late spring while the NW continues to cash in. Also, Texas is just averagish precipitation wise into the spring and not overly cold. Just another way to slice the pie.

[raindancewx]

I use the ESRL AMO values. I'd love to use the Klozbach & Gray figures but I've never been able to find them in a table format. This is what I used to generate my AMO splits for El Nino winters.

 

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.long.data

[bubba hotep]

18z GFS was a step in the right direction, we don't want that system cutting NE so fast. A more southern track that lifts out slower would be nice.

[aggiegeog]

0Z and 6Z are not good solutions for us. They take the storm from N Mex to MO. Not sure I can recall a closed upper low cutting NE like that before.

[Srain]

Major flooding concerns will likely be the main issue during the hectic Christmas Holiday period. The Gulf remains warm and with an active sub tropical jet overhead and summertime PW's near or exceeding 2 inches with a wintertime storm track, expect a myriad of weather issues developing particularly later in the week into the 28th/29th.

[bubba hotep]

Major flooding concerns will likely be the main issue during the hectic Christmas Holiday period. The Gulf remains warm and with an active sub tropical jet overhead and summertime PW's near or exceeding 2 inches with a wintertime storm track, expect a myriad of weather issues developing particularly later in the week into the 28th/29th.

 

There appears to be pretty agreement b/w the 00z GFS and Euro that a powerful H5 vort will drop as far south as northern Mexico before kicking out across Texas. Obviously the exact tract isn't locked in but heavy rain is looking like a good possibility across already saturated areas. After that, who knows where there might be some wintry weather. 

[bubba hotep]

So the 12z Euro swung hard towards the 00z Para Euro... keeps basically everything east of DFW. Looks nothing like the 12z GFS as far as precipitation  placement goes across N. Texas up into Oklahoma. 

 

ETA: 12z Euro doesn't appear to have too much support from the EPS