Texas/New Mexico/Louisiana/Mexico Obs And Discussion Thread Part 8

[bubba hotep]

Well... That is unfortunate. I hate the +PNA

[cstrunk]

At my office east of Longview, TX, we've had about 3.7" of rain measured in our rain gauge. The streams/creeks are just out of their banks. We may end up with a few more tenths to a half an inch today depending on if we get hit by any of the heavier cells that have yet to move through the area.

[Quixotic1]

Winter is on deathwatch. 

[cheese007]

12 minutes ago, Quixotic1 said:

Winter is on deathwatch. 

At least DFW got a dusting this year!

[Quixotic1]

6 minutes ago, cheese007 said:

At least DFW got a dusting this year!

certainly better than last year.  I can buy a real weather station for a real winter next fall.  

[DFWWeather]

36 minutes ago, Quixotic1 said:

Winter is on deathwatch. 

I know it is on hiatus now, but the cold is definitely coming back in some fashion. Despite the positive PNA, the latest 2mb warming episode over the pole and the epo trending negative towards the end of the month and the NAO trending negative all point to the cold coming back end of next week into week one of February east of the Rockies. MJO in phase 1 and 8? Also, looks like a favorable 500mb pattern for snow and ice for us. Both the long range ECMWF, GFS, and CMC all support this idea. Check out latest 8 to 10 day 500 mb means. Arctic may even overtake the eastern 2/3rds of the CONUS by mid February.

[raindancewx]

The Weatherbell guys updated their February forecast on the 17th - they have OK 1-3F below normal in February, with the areas of TX right next to OK around 1F below normal. Rest of TX, other than El Paso area -1F to 1F.

They have an area centered around the OH/IN border 5F below normal. Immediate West Coast, Southern NM, Southern AZ all +1F. Probably 80% of the country -5F to 0F below normal.

My idea for February was that the cold anomalies would look like August, maybe they center between the Continental Divide and the Mississippi River, but we'll have to see. Been pleased with how my "weather based summer analogs" have handled January so far.

 

[bubba hotep]

6 hours ago, cheese007 said:

At least DFW got a dusting this year!

I've gotten a trace and 0.5" in the books, so better than last winter by a mile! The +PNA brings back memories of last winter. Maybe better moisture return helps get some storms this weekend but the next system after that looks dry. Then NW flow sets in. How far into February do we go before recovering? Climo starts working against us fast! 

[bubba hotep]

6 hours ago, Quixotic1 said:

Winter is on deathwatch. 

18z GFS is scary! Watch this be the one time it is right at 384 hrs

[Quixotic1]

6 hours ago, DFWWeather said:

I know it is on hiatus now, but the cold is definitely coming back in some fashion. Despite the positive PNA, the latest 2mb warming episode over the pole and the epo trending negative towards the end of the month and the NAO trending negative all point to the cold coming back end of next week into week one of February east of the Rockies. MJO in phase 1 and 8? Also, looks like a favorable 500mb pattern for snow and ice for us. Both the long range ECMWF, GFS, and CMC all support this idea. Check out latest 8 to 10 day 500 mb means. Arctic may even overtake the eastern 2/3rds of the CONUS by mid February.

I know but overall there's a "meh" kind of quality to it.  NAO is going negative.  Great for the east.  EPO is going slightly negative so a shot of cold isn't out of the question.  The PNA and AO argue against anything earthshaking.  And that jet is insane.  I see zonal and that is bad.  Hope I'm wrong.

42 minutes ago, bubba hotep said:

18z GFS is scary! Watch this be the one time it is right at 384 hrs

That jet is nuts for a Nina.  Absolutely nuts.  It's like they moved the ITCZ north about 20 degrees.

[aggiegeog]

Looking like we are in for a major Polar Vortex disruption. It has been a while since we have had a solid long term -AO. As long as we can get a -EPO which has been at least transient lately we will get some cold and the newly active STJ has me getting excited for February.

[cstrunk]

We ended up with 5.33" rainfall since this past weekend at my office.

[aggiegeog]

My rain gauge says 7" at my place in Hideaway. BTW so much for warmth today high in the 50s with clouds finally just breaking up now.

[raindancewx]

I was doing some research the other day using a Z-score calculator for a differences in proportions, and if you use an 11-year filter (sunspot/flux cycle), there are definitely clusters of notable weather events near certain parts of solar cycle here in Albuquerque. Used a p value of <=0.05 with the cluster in question compared to all others. In other words, was trying to see if "low probability events" become meaningfully more likely in a given solar year. I defined solar years as x+11, for each year from the 1930s to now, and then compared frequency in the cluster to all others. Most of the stuff I looked at didn't show a meaningful difference but some stuff did.

Low sunspots - frequently cold Jan - Apr. My math suggests we are in "year nine" of the solar cycle. Years 11 to 2 - and the cycle is 1-11, with 1 following 11 - tend to be remarkably cold in Jan-Apr at least once. I set 1931-32 (July-June as year one) with 1941-42 (July-June as year eleven).

My threshold for cold or warm is mean high 1931-2015 +/-2F - so you're essentially looking to see if something you'd expect to happen 20-30% of the time, given the hypothesis the sun has no impact, instead happens 80-100% of the time in the cluster, and it does in a few cases. Anyway, the sun controlling the NAO/blocking or whatever seems to have notable impact here Jan-Apr for making us cooler.

For precipitation the pattern was really interesting here - odds of "meaningfully" different clusters of dry/wet years exist in all periods of what the sun does. The three years heading into the solar maximum, July-Sept are very wet - but it goes in order, July initially (further from the maximum) then August, then September right in the July-June maximum year (i.e. we had 3.97" precip here in Sept 2013, solar peak was Feb 2014). A similar but slower pattern happens in the cold season - November is wet near the solar peak, then January a couple years before the minimum (i.e. now - and sure it's been very wet!) - and then Feb/Mar are very wet at and just before the minimum. September & April tend to be very dry just after the maximum, I think 7 of the 8 Aprils had no precip at all.

Also looked at odds of getting 3 inches of snow by month and cluster, to see if there were solar effects. January and April both came out as notably more likely (p<=0.05) to have >=3" snow in year nine here, which is this year. We've had a ton of rain this month, but not much snow yet - still possible though with three little systems coming in the next week. April has only had >=3" snow in six years, so it was cool to see 3/7 in pattern 9...given there are 11 patterns and given that is only snows here in April a quarter of the time! February, which is both cold/wet in pattern 11 (the year before the solar minimum) had a huge snowy cluster (5 of 7 years with 3-11 inches of snow...against 14 of 78 instances of >=3" snow all other years)  in pattern 11 - so that should be fun in two years.

[bubba hotep]

On 1/18/2017 at 2:08 PM, Quixotic1 said:

Winter is on deathwatch. 

Euro weeklies have time of death about Feb 3rd... just ugly. 

[Quixotic1]

1 hour ago, bubba hotep said:

Euro weeklies have time of death about Feb 3rd... just ugly. 

Ugh.  This why I avoid long range: either overhype or despair.  I prefer old school teleconnections.  I think I can talk myself into it with histograms rather than maps.  Haha.

 CPC has us BN days 10-14.  Maybe?

i will say this: the current pattern will make for an interesting spring.  I think we (the U.S. ) will have our busiest severe season since 2011.  

[Quixotic1]

2 hours ago, raindancewx said:

I was doing some research the other day using a Z-score calculator for a differences in proportions, and if you use an 11-year filter (sunspot/flux cycle), there are definitely clusters of notable weather events near certain parts of solar cycle here in Albuquerque. Used a p value of <=0.05 with the cluster in question compared to all others. In other words, was trying to see if "low probability events" become meaningfully more likely in a given solar year. I defined solar years as x+11, for each year from the 1930s to now, and then compared frequency in the cluster to all others. Most of the stuff I looked at didn't show a meaningful difference but some stuff did.

Low sunspots - frequently cold Jan - Apr. My math suggests we are in "year nine" of the solar cycle. Years 11 to 2 - and the cycle is 1-11, with 1 following 11 - tend to be remarkably cold in Jan-Apr at least once. I set 1931-32 (July-June as year one) with 1941-42 (July-June as year eleven).

My threshold for cold or warm is mean high 1931-2015 +/-2F - so you're essentially looking to see if something you'd expect to happen 20-30% of the time, given the hypothesis the sun has no impact, instead happens 80-100% of the time in the cluster, and it does in a few cases. Anyway, the sun controlling the NAO/blocking or whatever seems to have notable impact here Jan-Apr for making us cooler.

For precipitation the pattern was really interesting here - odds of "meaningfully" different clusters of dry/wet years exist in all periods of what the sun does. The three years heading into the solar maximum, July-Sept are very wet - but it goes in order, July initially (further from the maximum) then August, then September right in the July-June maximum year (i.e. we had 3.97" precip here in Sept 2013, solar peak was Feb 2014). A similar but slower pattern happens in the cold season - November is wet near the solar peak, then January a couple years before the minimum (i.e. now - and sure it's been very wet!) - and then Feb/Mar are very wet at and just before the minimum. September & April tend to be very dry just after the maximum, I think 7 of the 8 Aprils had no precip at all.

Also looked at odds of getting 3 inches of snow by month and cluster, to see if there were solar effects. January and April both came out as notably more likely (p<=0.05) to have >=3" snow in year nine here, which is this year. We've had a ton of rain this month, but not much snow yet - still possible though with three little systems coming in the next week. April has only had >=3" snow in six years, so it was cool to see 3/7 in pattern 9...given there are 11 patterns and given that is only snows here in April a quarter of the time! February, which is both cold/wet in pattern 11 (the year before the solar minimum) had a huge snowy cluster (5 of 7 years with 3-11 inches of snow...against 14 of 78 instances of >=3" snow all other years)  in pattern 11 - so that should be fun in two years.

Interesting.  I did something similar comparing land falling hurricanes in Texas and the subsequent winters. The chi2 plots showed absolutely no difference temperature wise (temps are the bigger deal here because of the lack of elevation) in all months except one: January.  Winters after no Hurricane landfalls were more likely to be colder than warm.  Cray cray.

[cheese007]

36 minutes ago, Quixotic1 said:

 I think we (the U.S. ) will have our busiest severe season since 2011.  

Not that that would take much 

[aggiegeog]

11 hours ago, bubba hotep said:

Euro weeklies have time of death about Feb 3rd... just ugly. 

Eh, Euro has not been good this winter. GFS has been better at long range and Euro weeklies have just about polar opposite of reality at long range. NE Pacific ridging, building cold in NW NA, STJ active, and Canadian blocking are all present or expected over the next few weeks and winter in the past few years has shifted from mid-Nov through mid-Feb to now being more early Dec through early March. To compare to hurricane season we are still in August and the atmosphere is favorable generally, it's not like we have have a roaring jet into Canada.

Edit to add: in the 17 days leading up to the March 2-3, 2014 extreme sleet storm which featured temps subfreezing highs and lows in the teens we were above average for 14 days with most days in the 70s during that time. One big event will quickly make us forget about warm periods during winter.

[bubba hotep]

1 minute ago, aggiegeog said:

Eh, Euro has not been good this winter. GFS has been better at long range and Euro weeklies have just about polar opposite of reality at long range. NE Pacific ridging, building cold in NW NA, STJ active, and Canadian blocking are all present or expected over the next few weeks and winter in the past few years has shifted from mid-Nov through mid-Feb to now being more early Dec through early March. To compare to hurricane season we are still in August and the atmosphere is favorable generally, it's not like we have have a roaring jet into Canada.

I was just going to post that the Weeklies have been mostly trash. By D15, already significant difference bw the Weeklies and last nights Euro EPS. There is always the chance that zonal flow dominates and the cold that is building in WCAN in the long range just bleeds out east. However, the pattern so far this winter would suggest otherwise.

[aggiegeog]

This winter has yet to see any particular pattern set up for any period of time.

[bubba hotep]

53 minutes ago, aggiegeog said:

This winter has yet to see any particular pattern set up for any period of time.

Overall, it's been pretty la nina like. Two big -EPO dumps but overall dry and warm. The recent big rains are probably the first signs in the sensible wx here locally that the pattern is breaking down. Holding out for one last big cold push. The 12z Euro EPS is really loading up our source region by D15. Just need it to unload.

[raindancewx]

Been pretty wet these last two months. I had the East Coast dry this winter - not sure if it will work out, they seem like they will have a couple decent storms the next few weeks, but it has been decent the last 60 days. My fear for the Spring is the whole pattern shifts north 200-500 miles and we roast down here. Hopefully it won't happen until April/May though.

[bubba hotep]

13 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

Been pretty wet these last two months. I had the East Coast dry this winter - not sure if it will work out, they seem like they will have a couple decent storms the next few weeks, but it has been decent the last 60 days. My fear for the Spring is the whole pattern shifts north 200-500 miles and we roast down here. Hopefully it won't happen until April/May though.

Texas has been lucky and really added those anomalies in the last 10 days or so. Florida has probably been the most "nina" and the SW being the least. Although, there are a few examples of N. Cali doing well and '10-11 was pretty good overall for Cali. Lots of variation with precipitation during ninas. 

[raindancewx]

The dryness in the NW to me implies that the battle between the PDO+ (which favors dryness/heat up there) and La Nina (which favors wetness/cold up there) has been pretty even. The entirety of the West seems to be splitting the difference between the PDO+ effects and the La Nina effects. La Nina winters are warm here - and we have been. But they are dry too...and we haven't been dry at all. The PDO+ favors wet...but mild/cool. We've been wet but warm. 

[bubba hotep]

9 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

The dryness in the NW to me implies that the battle between the PDO+ (which favors dryness/heat up there) and La Nina (which favors wetness/cold up there) has been pretty even. The entirety of the West seems to be splitting the difference between the PDO+ effects and the La Nina effects. La Nina winters are warm here - and we have been. But they are dry too...and we haven't been dry at all. The PDO+ favors wet...but mild/cool. We've been wet but warm. 

Yea, I was looking at some analogs today the +PDO has been the thing that has me tossing many years. 

[bubba hotep]

A combo of the hi-res CAMs point towards a decent chance of someone seeing storms east of I35 today. I've got my fingers crossed! 

[Chinook]

I figured this might be relevant for anybody interested in Houston's heavy rain.

 

[Quixotic1]

This is a trip!  Mammatus clouds with no storms!

[bubba hotep]

Storms trying to fire out west of DFW