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

[Quixotic1]

22 hours ago, bubba hotep said:

I'm still holding out hope for the last week of Feb into 1st of March. Was it two years ago that our whole winter was basically two weeks at the end of Feb? One small system then a nice winter storm. I'll have to go back and look.

Yep!  Actually a small system and then two storms where we got 6" in each of em.  You were so upbeat and I had already buried the winter.  

[cstrunk]

Looks like a really nice week upcoming for East Texas. Boring as far as precipitation goes, but we'll be close to a record high in Tyler on Monday, February 6th. Forecast high is 83F and the record (1911) is 84F.

*EDIT - Looks like the record high is for tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb 7th at 82F. The forecast high is 83F.

[raindancewx]

The Canadian, European, and GFS all have a pretty big snowstorm for New Mexico next weekend. Focus right now seems to be Southern & Eastern NM.

[bubba hotep]

On 2/5/2017 at 3:51 PM, Quixotic1 said:

Yep!  Actually a small system and then two storms where we got 6" in each of em.  You were so upbeat and I had already buried the winter.  

Ha! I do remember telling you in a site mail that we were going to score.

I'm trying to make the best of this trip to New Mexico. There were some snow showers today but I had to climb up above 8k ft to find them but the views are always worth it.

Even though the snow showers weren't much there was snow on the ground up higher

[Roy]

At least there is snow somewhere.  

[raindancewx]

Sad thing is our snow pack was at 139% of normal statewide on Jan 25, 13 days later, it's 113% of normal state wide. Been losing 2% a day on where we should be with the lack of snow and gradual warmth. Good news is this system coming in over the weekend looks pretty strong and snowy. European has two inches for Albuquerque.

The CFS monthly, European weeklies, and Canadian monthly all show a fairly cold March for much of the West, and CPC has wet conditions for 2/13 to 2/17, 2/15 to 2/21, and 2/18 to 3/3 for New Mexico. Albuquerque has been drier than the long-term March average every year since 2007, would love to see the dry-streak break this year. The MJO is also about to go through phase eight with near record magnitude since 1975. The years where the MJO goes nuts in Feb/Mar tend to have big snow storms out here if it gets to 8-1-2-3. I think Jan-Mar 1988 is the best match to what has happened recently and what is forecast since 1975, but we'll have to see.

Would really like to see the wave move intensely into 1-2-3 again, got super cold here in late January when it did that before, but too early to know if that is in the cards or not.

We haven't had a cold March in a non-El Nino here (ABQ) since 1975, so I'm a bit suspicious of that part of it, but we keep getting these 25 day dry spells followed by a ~ 20 days where it is very wet for three weeks, with four to five storms, with some trend towards a wet week with one-two big storms instead in a week more recently.

Dry Spells: July 3 - July 28

                Aug 21 - Sept 10

                Oct 10 - Nov 1

                Nov 22 - Dec 16

                Dec 24 - Jan 13

                Jan 22 - Feb 12/13?

                Mar 8 - Apr 1?

               Apr 24 - May 17?

Wet: July 29 - Aug 19

         Sept 11 - Oct 9

         Nov 1 - Nov 21

         (Dec 17-23)

         (Jan 14-21)

         Feb 13 - Mar 7?

         Apr 2 - Apr 23?

         May 18 - Jun 8?

[raindancewx]

I'm starting to get excited for March - the European weeklies if anything keep getting colder for much of the West. The CFS seems to be slowly trending in that direction too, and Canadian has been trending colder in its monthly outlooks since December. 

The deeper the European weeklies get into March, the greater the precipitation anomaly forecast. The ensemble mean and control run show a ton of snow falling in the SW & CA over the next 45 days too.

If the temperature pattern verifies, cold West, very warm SE, the area in between is going to have to deal with a lot of nasty tornadoes in late Feb & March.

[Quixotic1]

Well, climo is working against us.  The cfs and cansips are ghastly.  I got nothin.  We sit at 11 freezes at DFW.  We technically have about 6 weeks to get three freezes but i see nothing hopeful.  14 is the fewest.  be afraid.  Be very afraid.  

[DoctorMu]

4 hours ago, Quixotic1 said:

Well, climo is working against us.  The cfs and cansips are ghastly.  I got nothin.  We sit at 11 freezes at DFW.  We technically have about 6 weeks to get three freezes but i see nothing hopeful.  14 is the fewest.  be afraid.  Be very afraid.  

 

This is the best I've got.  Just a freeze.  In the distance.  Besides for 2 cold days an a 17°F low, the coldest in College sSation in a decade...we've had nothing resembling winter.

 

[Quixotic1]

30 minutes ago, DoctorMu said:

 

This is the best I've got.  Just a freeze.  In the distance.  Besides for 2 cold days an a 17°F low, the coldest in College sSation in a decade...we've had nothing resembling winter.

 

Well, that truthfully makes me feel better.  Not enough to get a Davis weather station, but hopeful.

 

incidentally, you in the STAT department at TAMU? I'm working my masters.  

[raindancewx]

Albuquerque (officially) got 1.1" snow at the airport on 2.12.17 after being 75F on Friday. Maybe another 0.2" to 0.5" midnight after, but no report yet. It's winding down for now, but should snow again tonight. I think I only got 0.5" or so, but generally seems to have been 1-3" to the South & West, with a coating to two in the north and east.

We've already matched January, our prior "high" month for this snow season. Kind of nice to see. My analogs and some tests I've developed suggested February was most likely to be the snowiest month based on Summer observations. Looks fairly likely now, unless March comes through. Pretty rare to get an over 1.1 inches of snow in April here (14% of Aprils in 85 years). So...our snowiest month will probably be February, March, or a Jan-Feb tie I guess if none of the snow that's fallen since midnight added up to over 0.1".

Snow pack state wide fell from 139% of normal (Jan 25) to 91% of normal (Feb 12). Hopefully we can recover a bit before it all starts to rapidly vanish in mid-April.

[Chargers09]

South Central and SE Texas just got bumped from a marginal risk to an enhanced risk for tomorrow; all in one outlook.

 

Wonder if the front being further north than modeled today has influenced that.

[bubba hotep]

5 hours ago, Chargers09 said:

South Central and SE Texas just got bumped from a marginal risk to an enhanced risk for tomorrow; all in one outlook.

 

Wonder if the front being further north than modeled today has influenced that.

These events have been popping up a lot so far in '17. Next Sunday to Tuesday could be another multi day event covering portions of this sub forum. 

[weatherextreme]

3 hours ago, bubba hotep said:

These events have been popping up a lot so far in '17. Next Sunday to Tuesday could be another multi day event covering portions of this sub forum. 

 

 

Which portions are showing up?

[bubba hotep]

22 hours ago, Quixotic1 said:

Well, that truthfully makes me feel better.  Not enough to get a Davis weather station, but hopeful.

 

incidentally, you in the STAT department at TAMU? I'm working my masters.  

What are you getting a masters in? I've been kicking around the thought of going back to finish my PhD. 

[Quixotic1]

1 hour ago, bubba hotep said:

What are you getting a masters in? I've been kicking around the thought of going back to finish my PhD. 

My masters in Statistics.  I love it.  I'm a masochist I guess.  I have one in Biology and BSs in both bio and chem.  what PhD are you seeking?  You're a braver man than me.  I turned down med school 18 years ago.

[raindancewx]

As a sanity test, I did a bunch of quick statistical tests to see which months, filtered by ENSO state - L/N/E - are most predictive of a wet or dry March here. For La Nina, the best two are Aug+Oct as a unit, and January. We had a very wet January here, and an OK Aug+Oct for precip. When I ran the numbers, 1973-74 popped up as almost identical to 2016-17 - huge January, nearly the same numbers in August & October. Despite the differences in the AMO, the MJO timing seems similar.

La Jul-Jun	Jan	Aug + Oct	March	Formula	Error	Err, All Avg
1933	0.06	2.66	0.01	0.50	0.49	0.35
1938	0.70	0.80	0.67	0.60	0.07	0.31
1942	0.25	2.15	0.23	0.35	0.12	0.13
1949	0.02	0.86	0.04	-0.11	0.15	0.32
1950	0.41	0.09	0.29	0.18	0.11	0.07
1954	0.29	0.90	0.00	0.13	0.13	0.36
1955	0.46	1.38	0.00	0.33	0.33	0.36
1956	0.78	0.96	0.52	0.68	0.16	0.16
1964	0.47	1.02	0.49	0.32	0.17	0.13
1970	0.27	2.49	0.03	0.42	0.39	0.33
1971	0.12	2.02	0.08	0.29	0.21	0.28
1973	0.88	1.54	0.85	0.71	0.14	0.49
1974	0.26	2.75	0.95	0.48	0.47	0.59
1975	0.00	1.40	0.09	0.06	0.03	0.27
1983	0.33	1.47	0.62	0.25	0.37	0.26
1984	0.49	5.74	0.70	0.79	0.09	0.34
1988	0.57	3.61	0.48	0.49	0.01	0.12
1995	0.17	0.74	0.02	-0.02	0.04	0.34
1998	0.12	2.68	1.10	0.49	0.61	0.74
1999	0.30	3.30	1.27	0.58	0.69	0.91
2000	0.28	3.23	0.27	0.58	0.31	0.09
2005	0.04	1.52	0.14	0.12	0.02	0.22
2007	0.39	1.22	0.00	0.26	0.26	0.36
2008	0.00	2.42	0.31	0.43	0.12	0.05
2010	0.07	1.21	0.00	0.03	0.03	0.36
2011	0.40	2.41	0.20	0.41	0.21	0.16
2016	1.04	1.60		0.87	0.87	0.36

I was pleased to see it, 1973-74 was one of my analogs for the winter. The precip anomaly map today looks like 1973-74 but upside down - i.e. it's a warm AMO/PDO version of 1973-74 instead of the cold AMO/PDO version. The super heat is still in the SE though. Just for kicks, I tested what predicts March precipitation in a Neutral too. It's July, November & February. Using Neutrals, 1981-82 and 1996-97 are probably the best matches (which is interesting - given that they went into huge El Ninos fairly early). 1997 had a snowy, very wet and very cold April here, but 1982 was wet in March. 1981-82 was another analog I had for winter here. The Neutral predictors say we get 0.23", instead of 0.87", but in an ONI sense I'd bet on the La Nina number being closer given the La Nina conditions from July to January. Anyway, it's interesting looking at this because the months that are predictive for March moisture in El Nino implied a dry March last year, which verified, but this year, the numbers imply 0.87" precipitation in March, which would be our biggest March total since 2005.

I'm cautiously optimistic that we kill the nine-year drier than average March streak this year.

[raindancewx]

Warm Februaries in non-El Nino years with 0.3" - 0.6" precipitation in ABQ tend to be followed by "cold" (for March) and stormy Marches. These years were good matches in January too, although terrible in Nov/Dec. Suspect the strength of the match will fade some in March and vanish by April?

To me the March maps looks like a blend of MJO 7/8/1/2/3, so maybe we start out in 1/2/3 but make it back to 4-7 at the end of the month to warm the East up?

[monsoonman1]

5% tornado probabilities for parts of NW TX and SW OK. I'd imagine some chasers will be out.

[Jim Martin]

Weather Watch possible later today for Northwest Texas. All severe hazards look to be in play.

[SmokeEater]

3 hours ago, monsoonman1 said:

5% tornado probabilities for parts of NW TX and SW OK. I'd imagine some chasers will be out.

A lot more then would be usually down there too, A lot are on the way back from Chasercon in CO.

[JoMo]

Tornado hit parts of/near San Antonio it sounds like.

[Chinook]

I have not heard of any damage report, but here is the warning

-

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN AUSTIN SAN ANTONIO HAS ISSUED A  
 
* TORNADO WARNING FOR...  
 
* UNTIL 1115 PM CST  
      
* AT 1038 PM CST, A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A  
  TORNADO WAS LOCATED OVER SAN ANTONIO INT AP, MOVING NORTHEAST AT 35  
  MPH.  
 
  HAZARD...TORNADO.   
 
  SOURCE...RADAR INDICATED ROTATION.

 

[andyhb]

1 hour ago, JoMo said:

Tornado hit parts of/near San Antonio it sounds like.

Quite a bit of damage via the scanner traffic, was quite a strong signature associated with the QLCS now moving towards College Station/Bryan.

[Chargers09]

Tornado hit about 3-4 miles north of me. I knew the storm had that QLCS notch on the radar and sure enough it went warned soon after. Nasty storm.

[cstrunk]

I was hoping for some lightning and thunder overnight... but alas, nothing. Just a steady cool rain. If we aren't going to have any more winter, I'd at least like to get the severe weather season rolling around here. 

[Chargers09]

3 confirmed tornados so far. EF1 in Alamo Heights. EF0 Converse (1.5 miles from me) and another on Putting Green Road.

[Roy]

Well, only got .18 in north Fort Worth, far less than the 1-2 inches predicted. Another underperforming rain event. Hope that's not a trend.

[Chargers09]

1 hour ago, Chargers09 said:

3 confirmed tornados so far. EF1 in Alamo Heights. EF0 Converse (1.5 miles from me) and another on Putting Green Road.

Putting Green- EF1 110 mph (almost EF2, damn).

4th tornado- EF0. Garden Ridge.

[raindancewx]

Can't help but notice that the temperature pattern for February is basically a matching image of October. Going to be a wild March if March is a spitting image of November. Especially since September is basically a matching image of January. February precipitation is also a strong match to October, although Sept/Jan are not strong for precipitation. Should also note that Dec/Aug are not a good linkup at all either, even worse than Sept/Jan for precip, and terrible for temps. But there are decent temp link ups for Sept-Jan, Oct-Feb, so it does make you wonder about March.