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

wxmx

By wxmx,
in Central/Western States

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Quixotic1

Quixotic1

Posted
Posted

Cool, I'll add those. Yea, I don't see any signs and actually have no interest in one. Dry and cold is not my thing :lol:

Actually other than January and February 78, Denember 83 was extremely memorable. It snowed on the 16th and the snow was still there in January. We had light snow off and on the whole time. A dusting every day or so with extreme cold.. Highs in the teens and 20s. Lows in the single digits. Lakes froze over. I would take that every winter. I'd post a link to the data but they change the link every 24 hours. Nostalgia man.

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aggiegeog

aggiegeog

Posted
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The early next week storm is looking very snowy for the NM mountains on all models. There have already been multiple big snows there this year, but this looks to be the biggest. I could see 36"+ falling above 9,000 ft. Maybe some 50" totals. This will be the most snow I have ever seen on the ground when I get to my family's place Thursday. There could be 65"+ on the ground which I will have to dig through to get under the house to turn on the water.

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bubba hotep

bubba hotep

Posted
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I've added '83 and '89

w9grit.png

This produces the classic look that Jorge was describing with the ridging building NE into Canada. Other classical features include the lower heights between the Hudson Bay and Greenland. Then also the powerful kicker that rolls down out of Canada (lower heights just to the N. of the Great Lakes) that opens the flood gates allowing mega highs to just crush the Southern Plains. It looks '89 was nearly 1060 and '83 was nearly 1070!

 

1989122206.gif

 

 

1983122412.gif

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bubba hotep

bubba hotep

Posted
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It looks like the 00z GFS has started to drift back towards the common theme of late, dry system passage and best cold staying off to the NE. I knew that those better looking runs of cold coming down the spine of the Rockies with a punch of energy coming out of the SW were too good to be true. Maybe 00z will be a bump in the road and we will trend back towards a potential storm b/w the 8 - 10th. 

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Quixotic1

Quixotic1

Posted
Posted

Dunno if it goes back that far, but January (18th or thereabouts) 1930 and February (12th est.) 1899 were also some probably -EPO induced outbreaks.

ETA: as progressive as everything has been, our best shot is probably going to be the tail end of winter as things slow down and we get less zonal and start to stack up. 2003 had the sleet event at the end of February and 87 was pretty droll until the end of March when we had a fantastic low produce thundersnow and accumulations even at 34 degrees. Flakes the size of my hand.

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DFWWeather

DFWWeather

Posted
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It looks like the 00z GFS has started to drift back towards the common theme of late, dry system passage and best cold staying off to the NE. I knew that those better looking runs of cold coming down the spine of the Rockies with a punch of energy coming out of the SW were too good to be true. Maybe 00z will be a bump in the road and we will trend back towards a potential storm b/w the 8 - 10th. 

 

Yeah looks like the MJO is going to override the other signals. Nearly all the models have backed off on the cold air, though the ensemble H5 means of each do show some hope. I think we are just going to have to give up on this winter entirely.

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DFWWeather

DFWWeather

Posted
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Dunno if it goes back that far, but January (18th or thereabouts) 1930 and February (12th est.) 1899 were also some probably -EPO induced outbreaks.

ETA: as progressive as everything has been, our best shot is probably going to be the tail end of winter as things slow down and we get less zonal and start to stack up. 2003 had the sleet event at the end of February and 87 was pretty droll until the end of March when we had a fantastic low produce thundersnow and accumulations even at 34 degrees. Flakes the size of my hand.

 

You could also throw late January 1949 in the mix as it got to -2°F at DFW with nearly 7 inches of ice accretion in Fort Worth (our worst freezing rain event on record followed by 3 inches of snowfall). I believe Jan 1962 and Jan 1964 one of those years had a classic McFarland that brought devastating cold to the LRGV. Also, February 1905 was pretty brutal with coldest temp of 1°F on the 13th for DFW.

 

As far as late season snow events go, unless it can close down businesses and schools, they don't count to me. I'd almost rather it not do anything at all than have wet slushy snow in which you have to go to work in. That is a horrifying mess. Climatoloy really is against us at that stage. I must admit though that the February 24, 2003 event was very nice. That shut everything down for almost 3 days.

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bubba hotep

bubba hotep

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Yeah looks like the MJO is going to override the other signals. Nearly all the models have backed off on the cold air, though the ensemble H5 means of each do show some hope. I think we are just going to have to give up on this winter entirely.

The models will struggle with the pattern as the MJO emerges but the forecasted MJO can be good for Texas during a nino. We'll just have to wait and see but the ensembles have looked pretty bleak the past 24 hours after looking encouraging for a couple of days.

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wxmx

wxmx

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What a hideous 12z GFS run :lol: It keeps DFW above freezing throughout and has 70s for mid month.

Yep...backing off the super -EPO. Euro is much better...10 day 0z Euro was epic for me, and 12z shows a threat in the 5 day range for some of you, and something to watch in the 9-10 day range for people in the southern portion of the region.

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bubba hotep

bubba hotep

Posted
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Yep...backing off the super -EPO. Euro is much better...10 day 0z Euro was epic for me, and 12z shows a threat in the 5 day range for some of you, and something to watch in the 9-10 day range for people in the southern portion of the region.

Yea, GFS almost retrogrades the MJO before emerging in Phase 3 but by that time most other guidance is near Phase 5. Getting that wrong throws off everything else, so the 12z GFS is probably out to lunch on this.

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Srain

Srain

Posted
Posted

Yep...backing off the super -EPO. Euro is much better...10 day 0z Euro was epic for me, and 12z shows a threat in the 5 day range for some of you, and something to watch in the 9-10 day range for people in the southern portion of the region.

 The Euro solution is probably one of the better evolutions for a potential one-two punch for locations from San Antonio to Houston and on East into SW/Southern Louisiana I've seen in a while. Coastal low with the first shortwave next weekend and a secondary Coastal wave as the big dump heads South.

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raindancewx

raindancewx

Posted
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I was just playing around with the MJO composites for New Mexico for temps - we definitely want to be in phases in 1,2,3 for most of March and/or April to get late snow here. I'm hoping for a coherent (i.e. strong) MJO run through 3,4,5,6,7 in February that translates to 8,1,2,3,4 in March - that would probably get us our long over-due big March snowstorm and it plays into my analogs idea of a cold Spring. 

 

I was playing around with precipitation patterns for Albuquerque too, the El Nino signal is much stronger for moisture in Spring (MAM) than in Winter (DJF) believe it or not. I get annoyed with how NOAA defines El Nino, so for me I just look at Nino 3.4 in DJF and then I make the surrounding July-June year El Nino, because you don't end up with +0.5C in DJF in an area of water the size of the US overnight.

 

Anyway, check out the signal for ABQ precip in El Nino, Strong El Nino (1940-41, 1957-58, 1972-73, 1982-83, 1991-92, 1997-98) Non-El Nino, and then all years:

 

 gmErsq0.png

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Roy

Roy

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Posted

I have given up on snow at this point. Just give me some rain and a good spring storm season. I enjoy the nice temperatures, but not the dryness, and I like snow, too. So, have to have some cold for that. It was looking really good the past couple days. Hopefully things will flip back.

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bubba hotep

bubba hotep

Posted
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I've mentioned a few times that my biggest concern heading towards February is that we end up on the dry side of things. Dry and cold is no way to enjoy a winter (at least in my book). So here are a few images that explain why I have had this sinking feeling of coming up cold and dry for awhile now.

 

First, the Jan temp analogs:

 

sv1jpl.png

 

vs. observed (doesn't include last couple of days of month)

35hodv5.png

Precipitation analogs

 

nzgmzo.png

 

vs. observed

 

ip07dj.png

So what does Feb look like?

 

Precipitation analogs composite... ugly

15nrtjs.png

 

but there can obviously be a big winter storm and the area still end up below normal for precipitation, just need to get the timing right. Temp analogs are much more encouraging and match the forecasted MJO progression pretty nicely as well:

 

2dkb761.png

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DFWWeather

DFWWeather

Posted
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The Canadian, ECMWF, and GFS this morning's 0z H5 mean all show a pattern that should produce ridiculous cold. The operational models are back to being colder this morning, but not nearly as cold as pattern like that should produce. I at the very least would expect low temperatures in the teens at DFW with something like this.

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DFWWeather

DFWWeather

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12z data from ECMWF, GFS, and Canadian continues the theme of Arctic blast next week. Operational runs at 12z resolve this in the upper data well, but surface temps look way, way too warm given upper air pattern and dry cold air at surface. Could we see our first sub 20°F day next week at DFW? If not, certainly the coldest air of this winter season. Unfortunately, all of the models are bone dry with no snow or ice.

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bubba hotep

bubba hotep

Posted
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Any early speculation on where we'll be in the MJO for March? 1,2,3 phases are cold in NM. 4,5,6,7,8 are warm. 1 & 7 are wet...

 

The literature suggest that during an El Nino w/ an active MJO, Phases 3-8 are favored during the mature and declining states. It looks like we are about to see a repeat of the MJO cycle from January and that would increase confidence in increasing cold as we go through the month of February. However, who knows if there will be continued MJO activity in March.

 

The Euro Weeklies (old version and para version) look like they want to kill winter off after this next MJO cycle. If we don't score over the next 2 to 3 weeks then it looks like it could be lights out for snow lovers in Texas outside of the Panhandle.  

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raindancewx

raindancewx

Posted
Posted

I would settle for 3 to 8 in March. We had phase 3 late Feb (Feb 27-28 based on what the BOM shows. Albuquerque had it's biggest non-December snowstorm since the mid-1980s when we were in phase 3 late Feb in 2015.

 

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mjo/graphics/rmm.74toRealtime.txt

 

Ideal scenario is 7-8-1-2-3 for March and/or April I'd say for NM the SW.

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raindancewx

raindancewx

Posted
Posted

Went back and looked at some of the historical MJO WHs. I thought that the MJO was strong during 09-10 and 02-03 but it wasn't spectacular. However, look at another El Niño: 1988. That is some serious amplitude.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/mjo/graphics/archive/MJO_phase/198801.phase.90days.gif

 

Makes sense to me...Albuquerque had over 11 inches of snow that March and April. MJO was in phase 1-2-3 in both March AND April. That would have been an amazing Spring.

 

198804.phase.90days.gif

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