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

[Chargers09]

18 hours ago, Chargers09 said:

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

4th tornado- EF0. Garden Ridge.

2 more tornadoes confirmed near Thrall, TX. Both EF2. This brings the event total to 6 tornadoes.

 

there was also a damaging wind event confirmed near those tornadoes as well; estimated winds between 120-140 mph. Insane.

[Chinook]

Thrall, TX

[weatherextreme]

3 hours ago, Chargers09 said:

2 more tornadoes confirmed near Thrall, TX. Both EF2. This brings the event total to 6 tornadoes.

 

there was also a damaging wind event confirmed near those tornadoes as well; estimated winds between 120-140 mph. Insane.

 

 

From the local news

 

 

http://www.kvue.com/weather/severe-weather-causes-house-fire-rips-off-roof-of-southeast-austin-building/409948355

[raindancewx]

This is my updated Spring Outlook for anyone curious. Have much of the Midwest & TX dry, with heat generalized east of the Rockies. Expecting one-two wetter months in NM given the persistence of storms since November.

[Chargers09]

23 hours ago, Chargers09 said:

2 more tornadoes confirmed near Thrall, TX. Both EF2. This brings the event total to 6 tornadoes.

 

there was also a damaging wind event confirmed near those tornadoes as well; estimated winds between 120-140 mph. Insane.

We're now up to 9 tornadoes.

[Chargers09]

2 hours ago, Chargers09 said:

We're now up to 9 tornadoes.

Alamo Heights upgraded to EF2.

 

That makes 3 EF2, 3 EF1, 3 EF0.

[DoctorMu]

12 hours ago, raindancewx said:

This is my updated Spring Outlook for anyone curious. Have much of the Midwest & TX dry, with heat generalized east of the Rockies. Expecting one-two wetter months in NM given the persistence of storms since November.

 

That doesn't bode well for summer in Texas.  If the foliage dries out before summer, it will be a scorcher - even more than the usual.

 

[raindancewx]

One of the things about this winter that is overlooked for the West is that Nino 1.2 was a borderline El Nino all winter - the Nino 1.2 monthlies never dropped below +0.25C or so in July-Jan during the La Nina. I wasn't quite sure how to weight it in my winter outlook, but Nino 1.2 in some ways is the real mechanism for California. In the El Nino in 2014-15/2015-16, Nino 1.2 never really topped 3.4 - which is not a particularly wet signal for CA. For this year, Nino 1.2 was around 1C above Nino 3.4 the entire winter, functioning like a bizzaro-east based El Nino in practice, and as we all know, East based El Nino years are warm in the eastern two thirds of the US. 

[weatherextreme]

From FWD

 

There are some divergences in the computer models from Sunday and
beyond which I`ll address a little later, but there is actually
really good agreement in the main feature which is the ejection of
an upper trough across the Plains on Tuesday. Furthermore, all
models indicate unseasonably high low level moisture with
dewpoints in the 60s over the region Tuesday. Given the agreement
and pattern recognition, there is a fair amount of confidence in
saying there will be a dryline and a potential for severe
convection in the region Tuesday. Right now the uncertainty is
where the dry line will set up and whether it will be west or east
of the I-35 corridor. Obviously a western position would bring
more of the area into the fold for severe weather, while an
eastern position would be more typical of early Spring and limit
any severe threat to our eastern counties. Models seemingly are
favoring a western dryline position, but this doesn`t quite align
with climatology and lowers confidence in delineating a risk area
at this time. What is certain is that there will be ample wind
shear and sufficient instability in place ahead of the dry line so
it warrants our attention over the next few days.

[raindancewx]

AMO (ESRL) fell to 0.233 in January, from 0.343 in December using this index - https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/correlation/amon.us.long.data

[cheese007]

Got a hailer moving through the north Dallas burbs ATM. Pea to half inch hail

[Jim Martin]

Slight risk for severe thunderstorms today in Northeast Texas. Large hail/isolated tornado main risks.

[cstrunk]

Keeping an eye out this afternoon. The 18z HRRR is hinting at a pretty substantial UD Helicity Swath sweeping through east Texas this afternoon/evening. Pretty much right along I-20 east of Dallas. I wonder if it is picking up on an outflow boundary being laid down by current storms in NE Texas, with later storms firing east/south of Dallas and latching on and riding it all the way to Shreveport?

I stepped outside around noon and the atmosphere definitely had that feel to it. The sun is shining and it is 78/64 in Tyler. 

[cstrunk]

Looks like new storms are firing southeast of Dallas.

[cstrunk]

Well it looks like this afternoon was mostly a dud. One storm did get going fairly well around Lake Fork, with a severe warning tagged on it. But it never really looked that ominous except for maybe some hail. I was close to heading out the door to catch up with it before sunset, but decided not to. In hindsight I probably should have, I've been wanting to get more experience in shooting with my old GoPro that I haven't used much. The lack of low clouds in the area might have made for a nice show.

[raindancewx]

Ski resorts did pretty well with the storm that came through overnight/today in NM. Taos got 16", and most of the other resorts in the north got 5-10".

Now that it March, going to be interesting to see if it rains or snows in the city in March for the first time in two years!

[raindancewx]

The Canadian Model just came in with its new monthly outlooks. It likes April to be very cold in much of the West now, colder than the last forecast. The country trended warmer for March. New Mexico does look a bit wetter than before for March but still a bit dry. Bit disappointing to see the trend toward cold in the West for March vanish.

[Quixotic1]

 Two years ago.....

[raindancewx]

Fun pictures. Snow in Texas in March have been quite the shock for some people. We had 9.6" Feb 26-28 that winter, biggest non-Dec snowstorm in Albuquerque in 30 years.

One of the features of the 2014-15 Winter / Spring was the Atlantic actually got to the cold side of "average" in Feb-Apr. AMO ended up at 0.005 or something for Nov-Apr in 2014-15.

It's interesting to see it radically cooling off again in the East again. 

 

[cstrunk]

I tried a test-run of a GoPro time-lapse on my way to work this morning, thinking I might catch some good views with the front/storms moving through. I still have some things to figure out. Luckily, the views weren't that interesting, weather-wise. It was mostly light rain the whole way with a few heavy downpours here and there. 

[Quixotic1]

4 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Fun pictures. Snow in Texas in March have been quite the shock for some people. We had 9.6" Feb 26-28 that winter, biggest non-Dec snowstorm in Albuquerque in 30 years.

One of the features of the 2014-15 Winter / Spring was the Atlantic actually got to the cold side of "average" in Feb-Apr. AMO ended up at 0.005 or something for Nov-Apr in 2014-15.

It's interesting to see it radically cooling off again in the East again. 

 

Yep. 2015 was a Hail Mary.  Hoping the amo switch will give us more like it.

51 minutes ago, cstrunk said:

I tried a test-run of a GoPro time-lapse on my way to work this morning, thinking I might catch some good views with the front/storms moving through. I still have some things to figure out. Luckily, the views weren't that interesting, weather-wise. It was mostly light rain the whole way with a few heavy downpours here and there. 

You know that's a hell of a good idea. Had a storm come through last year with very fast moving shelf and roll clouds and impressive lightning.  A go pro running as I drove towards it would have been great.

[raindancewx]

Here is a look at the final temperature anomalies for the winter. Ridiculously wet for just about all the West, which is a fairly rare outcome - first time since 2007-08. Very warm winter in much of the Southeast. Very cold, likely near record cold, in parts of Washington state.

My October forecast idea wasn't terrible, had the West very wet, and the east dry/warm. The dry/warm area got further West and was stronger than I thought, so it pushed the cold/wet area back some to the West. This is mainly because the PDO has stayed positive instead of hanging out around 0 like I thought it would.

The entire West being Wet in a winter has only happened ~15 times since 1930, so kind of cool to see that happen again.

 

[bubba hotep]

On 3/7/2017 at 4:52 PM, raindancewx said:

Fun pictures. Snow in Texas in March have been quite the shock for some people. We had 9.6" Feb 26-28 that winter, biggest non-Dec snowstorm in Albuquerque in 30 years.

One of the features of the 2014-15 Winter / Spring was the Atlantic actually got to the cold side of "average" in Feb-Apr. AMO ended up at 0.005 or something for Nov-Apr in 2014-15.

It's interesting to see it radically cooling off again in the East again. 

 

That Atlantic sst configuration should result in another season of the MDR being a dead zone, if things don't flip back warm. I'll take +PDO/-AMO with ENSO transitioning to positive any summer! 

[raindancewx]

Well...that cool snap in the Atlantic is gone. The AMO & PDO hardly changed from Jan to Feb - 0.232 and 0.70 are the new numbers (ESRL and JISAO respectively).

I've been playing with solar (sunspot) numbers lately since we're likely to be in near-minimum thresholds by 1749-2016 standards from the winter of 2016-17 to winter 2021-22. There don't seem to be a whole lot of huge impacts for my area, but it is notable that despite the reputation for cold in Solar Minimums, I found that here in the SW the minimum years (July-June years with monthly sunspot mean <=55), the real effect is El Nino / La Nina temperature differences are exaggerated. So the La Ninas are warmer at the minimum, and the El Ninos are colder at the minimum. La Nina at the solar minimum is also the worst snow pattern historically for Albuquerque, but its offset by El Nino at the solar minimum, which is the coldest pattern for Albuquerque. Expecting two of the six winters from 2016-17 to 2021-22 to be cold (mean high <=47.5F) with one possibly <=46.5F.

Overall, when I did a proportion test (http://www.socscistatistics.com/tests/ztest/Default2.aspx) I found the following held true at the P<=0.05 level:

- Odds of >=8" snow in a month is much more likely near solar minimum (18% v. 9%)

- Odds of >=2" snow in a month is less likely near solar minimum (81% v. 96%).

- Odds of winter being 2F or more below normal mean highs are 3.5x greater near solar minimum than in other years (33% v. 9%).

- Odds of >=3" snow in March fall massively during near-minimum years (3%) v. all years (28%). It is the only month from Nov-Apr to show this effect. P was 0.00398, super low.

- Precipitation, odds of snow, and Fall/Spring temperatures were not impacted at the P<=0.05 level, although I didn't check snow frequency of precip frequency, just totals.

Spring / Fall temps I think might be impacted if I centered solar years on March / Sept instead of Dec, but i haven't looked at that yet.

Spatially, it is interesting to note that El Nino with solar minimum is very cold in NM, while El Nino with solar maximum is very cold on the East Coast. The Midwest freezes when you have Neutral with near-normal solar.

 

[raindancewx]

So...the legendary pattern may be returning for March? This is what the Canadian has. GFS still coming in...

Going to be a lot of nasty tornadoes if the SW & NW are cool/cold with the SE warm.

 

[cstrunk]

It felt like early May outside today. High of 87. Tomorrow will be very similar, high of 85. 

I'm hoping we can get some decent storms out of this system coming later this week.

[raindancewx]

Very very early look at next winter looks pretty cold. Near-solar minimum El Ninos are much more likely to be cold in NM than higher-solar El Ninos. If you use 2F below the 85-year mean as the threshold for cold, it's 6/9 cold near the minimum, and 1/18 away from the minimum. Statistically significant difference in frequency of cold winters.

I've kind of settled on these as the big seven for seasonal forecasting in NM:

- AMO phase (<=-0.1, -0.1 to 0.1, >=0.1):  WARM

- PDO phase (<=-0.4, -0.4 to 0.4, >=0.4):  WARM

- ENSO (El Nino or not?). Neutrals will act like weak El Nino if Monsoon wet, like weak La Nina if Monsoon dry:  EL NINO

- Monsoon (>=4.3", or not): WET

- ENSO order. El after El? El after N? El after La? La after El? La after N? La after L? N after El? N after N? N after L?:  EL AFTER LA

- Modoki?  La Nina Modokis are often fairly wet in the West & warm in the east, as are east-based El Ninos:  NON-MODOKI (look at Nino 1.2!)

- Solar? 10x more likely to get big snow in March in high solar. Wetter Springs in high solar. Much colder in low solar El Nino though:  LOW SOLAR (~2.5 yrs from min, ~20 sunspots)

Looks pretty cold nationally too. Least confident about the AMO/Monsoon - monsoon is almost completely random other than a weak correlation to the PDO. AMO looks a lot colder than even two months ago.

 

 

 

 

[cstrunk]

This thread sure has been quiet lately.

SPC has put the Ark-La-Tex region in a 5% tornado probability for later this afternoon (the 24th)...

[aggiegeog]

Northern NM mountains are very snowy right now with 1-2 feet from the last storm and the current storm will be in that range at the resorts. This is pretty typical for that area with temps warming well into the 40s and even 50s between storms.

[raindancewx]

Albuquerque had it's greatest daily rainfall today in March since at least March 9th 2009, pending any more precip by midnight....a staggering 0.18"!

Will be interesting seeing if the statewide snowpack numbers jump up a lot from 37% of normal today when the reading comes in 3.29.

Historically, 3/29 is a good snowfall date for the state. Will be interesting to see if that verifies, a lot of the rain should go over to snow north and east of Albuquerque after midnight, even down to 5,000 or 6,000 feet.