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

[bubba hotep]

11 hours ago, aggiegeog said:

Cool weather and rain is becoming increasingly likely early next week. Wonder if we can get a day with a sub 70 high. Our first sub 60 lows look likely.

For NM, the ski resorts could see snow with this weekend's storm down to base level (8-9,000 feet).

Angel Fire, NM always amazes me with its temperature swings. On Monday, they fell to 23 around 5 am and the temp rose to a high of 79 in the afternoon. 

Looks like we will finally get a legit push of cooler air and some widespread rain. FWD doing their best to jinx us in the DFW area

Quote

 Thereafter, it looks
like a few successive shots of cooler air will be possible as
northwest flow across the midwest results in a few frontal
passages southward next week. It certainly looks like fall will
finally arrive!

 

[Quixotic1]

2013-2014.  Book it.  

[Roy]

Finally. Need a decent rain to overcome the dent. Ready for a bit cooler temps, no matter how brief.

[bubba hotep]

Well, that was fun while it lasted! The Euro is back to cutting off an ULL and retrograding it to the SW. DFW still picks up some rain but East Texas is nearly shutout. This month has basically been the opposite of Climo with Western Texas picking up all the rain and Eastern Texas dry.

[raindancewx]

I was playing around with some stuff earlier - seems like all but one of Albuquerque's greatest snows in February are clustered following years when the mean high at the airport drops by <=9.6F from Sept->Oct. October mean high ranges from even with September to 21F colder than September here, so <=9.6F is actually the smallest third of the drop-offs. We actually average 2.7" inches of snow in February with a small drop off, against only 1.2" in years with a big drop off (>=12.9F).

Will be interesting to see how that plays out with Sept/Oct. The mean high here is likely to be ~82F to 84F for September, so a low drop (<=9.6F) from Sept to Oct would favor a warm or near average (not cold) October and a cold October would likely favor less snow in February (0-6"). The five >=6" Februarys all fall in years when the mean high drops ~7.7F to ~9.8F Sept-->Oct.

The flip-side is...if we have a huge drop off in temperature Sept-->Oct, it is likely because it rained a lot in October. So if we drop off a lot but get say, 1.8"+ precipitation, that would favor March snow, not February. Our greatest March snowstorms come when rain in August and rain in October total >=2.69". Ideal really would be a warm/wet October - 2 inches of rain, down only 8F-9F or so from September. Would favor February & March for 3"+ snowstorms.

[Roy]

Okay, well, what a difference a day makes. Just checked the latest GFS....virtually no rain for DFW. If my West TX old stomping grounds get 5 inches and I get .20, I am going to be mad...

[bubba hotep]

Bawwww ha ha ha ha! Ugh.... Euro appears to be folding to GFS with little to no rain for areas east of I35 in DFW this weekend.

[Roy]

Well, a nice shock. Have nearly 3 inches just this morning in north Fort Worth. But, it's such a narrow streaks of rainfall unfortunately. The big shield that was west of us just evaporated overnight. 

[bubba hotep]

On 9/23/2016 at 1:17 PM, bubba hotep said:

Bawwww ha ha ha ha! Ugh.... Euro appears to be folding to GFS with little to no rain for areas east of I35 in DFW this weekend.

I'll be honest and admit that I haven't looked at the models for DFW since Friday and was shocked by the soaking we got today!

 

[cstrunk]

I didn't have high hopes for rain since they lowered the rain chances to 30% in Tyler, but we got lucky and picked up somewhere between 1-1.5" or so. I'm looking forward to the 80's this week.

[aggiegeog]

15 hours ago, cstrunk said:

I didn't have high hopes for rain since they lowered the rain chances to 30% in Tyler, but we got lucky and picked up somewhere between 1-1.5" or so. I'm looking forward to the 80's this week.

Same in Hideaway, got around 1.5" with some very heavy downpours yesterday. Now enjoying the cool, cloudy weather. Wondering if upper 40s may be reached this week in the cold spots. Sure looks like Fall has finally arrived with no 90s in sight.

[raindancewx]

I wrote to Nate Mantua earlier this week, and he said the PDO value for August was 0.52, even though it hasn't updated on here -

http://research.jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest

I'm going with a neutral (slightly positive) PDO for the winter. It does look pretty mixed up at the moment with the cold ring along the West coast that is consistent with a -PDO half there, but half not, and the patches of warm/cool anomalies not truly positive everywhere.

[aggiegeog]

We made it down to the low 50s this morning, it felt great.

[bubba hotep]

On 9/28/2016 at 11:17 AM, aggiegeog said:

We made it down to the low 50s this morning, it felt great.

Yes, it felt great out this morning on my run!

[raindancewx]

Here is my Monsoon season (June 16-Sept 30) review for Albuquerque, with some early thoughts on winter:

Monsoon Highlights for Albuquerque:

June & July: Hot Enough To Make the Devil Cry:
- Mean Highs in June & July were 3-4F above normal
- 32 days with highs of 95F or hotter in June & July (1931-2015 normal: 18)
- Extremely dry from June 16-July 28: 0.30" rain...against 1.75" normal

The Wet Week:
- July 29 - Aug 4: 1.34" rain (normal: 0.42")

August:
- Not that wet in Albuquerque (0.86") but wet almost everywhere else in NM
- Cold: Lowest temperature of 55F was w/in 5F of August record low (1931-2015)
- Cold: Lowest mean lows since 1992
- Cold: Mean high of 85.8F well below 1931-2015 mean of 89.3F (-3.5F) 

September:
- Moist: 1.04" precipitation in Albuquerque (exactly 1931-2015 average)
- Mild:  Mean high of 83.2F (Historical Sept mean high = 82.6F)
- Warm: After not reaching 95F in Aug, it got to >=90F in ABQ two times
- Vs. Last Sept: Much colder - it never dropped below 55F in Sept 2015, was >=90F nine times (!)
- Near Record Cold: Lowest temperature of 42F was within 7F of Sept record low (1931-2015)

Overall June 16-Sept 30 2016:
- 3.09" rain (4.31" = 1931-2015 normal)
- Biggest mean high drop off ever from July to August (1892-2015), 95.6F to 85.8F
- June 16-July 28: 17.1% of normal rain
- July 29-Aug 4: 3.2x normal rain
- Aug 5-Sept 30: 1.47" rain (2.42" normal)
- Near reverse of June-Sept 2015: Hot early, cool late.

Early Winter Thoughts:
- Oct/Nov snow unlikely - a warm/very wet Oct would favor a big Feb-Mar for snow though. Nov may be wet.
- December likely warm & dry (it tends to behave similarly to June 16-July 15)
- January likely cold and wet (tends to be similar to July 16-Aug 15)
- February likely near average (mild, moist). Snowy if Oct mean highs drop <=9.6F from Sept mean highs
- March likely mild & dry (moisture favored when Aug & Oct see lots of rain, Aug was dry in ABQ)
- April likely cold & moist (one notable snow (>=2") more likely than usual)
- May likely mild & dry (we've had three cold Mays in a row)
- Pattern of frequent light snow, not one or two big storms
- Outside chance pattern mimicks 1958/1959 and we get a huge snowstorm in December, in a very warm Dec.
- Years of most similar Summer high temperatures (June-Sept) favor a lot of snow in Feb.
- If winter highs mimicked Summer, would see near record heat early (Dec) follwed by major cold snap (Jan/Feb).
- If lows mimicked Summer, would see near/record lows late in season Jan 15-Mar 15.
- Pattern looks disfavorable to snow during the day, but should be efficient for snow at night.

If significant snow is to fall, best bet is Jan 15-Apr 15. Oct-May season likely below average though.
Will release a cold season (Oct-May) forecast soon. Spring likely dry.

[raindancewx]

This thread needs a bump. Starting to get a bit psyched for the winter - had highs in the low 60s the other day. August & October is already wetter than last year, which favors bigger late season snows here. In Albuquerque we're up to 1.58" for Aug & Oct, and nearly at the monthly average for October rainfall already. If we get another 1.1" precipitation in October, March starts to look good for us in the SW.

 

[bubba hotep]

Looks like another shot of rain for DFW at the end of the week and then maybe the first truly legit cold push around the 20th or so.

[cstrunk]

Lows in the 50's and highs in the 80's recently in ETX. Not too shabby. Getting a few sprinkles today with an afternoon temp of 71 near Longview. We're starting to get dry again so hopefully we get something out of the current 30% chances for Thursday/Friday.

[bubba hotep]

The trend on the last couple of systems has been for the rainfall to end up farther east and south than expected. We haven't seen anything crazy but are sitting at nearly an inch of rain so far this month IMBY. Looks like another chance at the end of this week.

 

[bubba hotep]

Well that was a major bust 

For days, models and forecast showed majority of rain north of I20 and west of I35. Verification... Looks like a shut out with everything staying south of Dallas. 

[cstrunk]

2 hours ago, bubba hotep said:

Well that was a major bust 

For days, models and forecast showed majority of rain north of I20 and west of I35. Verification... Looks like a shut out with everything staying south of Dallas. 

We'll take it here in East Texas! My employer had only recorded 0.17" in September and 0.02" in October before yesterday/today.

[raindancewx]

Looks like Sept 2016 is a pretty good match for Sept 1931 + Sept 2005. Usually a lot harder to produce a decent match than from just using two years. Those of you in TX shouldn't look at the winter though...

 

[bubba hotep]

Can anyone pick out DFW?

 

[cstrunk]

14 hours ago, bubba hotep said:

Can anyone pick out DFW?

Heat islands. You can also pick out a handful of other cities; Shreveport, Omaha, New York, etc.

And then there's the meat locker known as Amarillo. 

[Quixotic1]

On 10/18/2016 at 0:54 PM, cstrunk said:

Heat islands. You can also pick out a handful of other cities; Shreveport, Omaha, New York, etc.

And then there's the meat locker known as Amarillo. 

Yeah.  Waco aggravates me too.  They always seem to have more snow, rain, cold and heat even though they are 90 miles south of DFW.  

[bubba hotep]

Will the storms make it to DFW tonight?

 

[bubba hotep]

9 hours ago, bubba hotep said:

Will the storms make it to DFW tonight?

 

Score! We ended up with some really nice storms that put on a decent light show this morning. 

[cstrunk]

The rain has made it to far ETX, or at least parts of it. Getting a pretty good downpour here at work, but just a sprinkle back at my house. No lightning/thunder to speak of.

*EDIT* Well, mother nature just made a liar out of me. First crack of thunder.

[raindancewx]

There is a long post associated with this, but Weather Trends 360 says 1960-61, 1966-67, 1983-84, 2010-2011, 2014-2015 is fairly similar as a blend to their official forecast for Nov-Apr. Does favor a fairly cold winter for NM & CO, with much of the rest of the West warm/near average.

Those years are pretty cold overall. Similar idea to what I had early, East Coast cold Nov, it backs west Dec, reaches SW for January. I think the east is warmer and the cold is further west in Jan-Feb though. March I think will be a bit more crazy looking, and then April I'm pretty different for that, but it's early. Overall, I like the idea they have, just think the cold is centered further west. 

[Quixotic1]

3 hours ago, raindancewx said:

There is a long post associated with this, but Weather Trends 360 says 1960-61, 1966-67, 1983-84, 2010-2011, 2014-2015 is fairly similar as a blend to their official forecast for Nov-Apr. Does favor a fairly cold winter for NM & CO, with much of the rest of the West warm/near average.

Those years are pretty cold overall. Similar idea to what I had early, East Coast cold Nov, it backs west Dec, reaches SW for January. I think the east is warmer and the cold is further west in Jan-Feb though. March I think will be a bit more crazy looking, and then April I'm pretty different for that, but it's early. Overall, I like the idea they have, just think the cold is centered further west. 

I'm starting to get on board with those who're going with a much warmer than normal winter.  I hate to be a gloomy gus, but right now DFW is on pace to shatter the record for warmest October.  We are at 75.3 for the month.  The next on the list is 1938 at 73.1.  Looking at other anomalously warm Octobers and you see nothing but dog winters.  last year's El Niño really did a job on us last year.  I fear the hangover might carry over into this one as well.