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Texas 2024 Discussion/Observations


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7 hours ago, Ed, snow and hurricane fan said:

Severe is possible, but the 2 systems early week have 5 inch rain bullseyes on both the GFS and CMC.  GFS suggests CAPE is low with a nearly saturated profile.  1.6 inch PW.  Of course, 6 days out, the warm sector not quite getting beyond the coast can change.  On another note, 19F this morning for a min at IAH breaks the daily record of 22F from 1972.


Regardless of heavy rainfall, thunder threat is already looking quite good for all of the coastal region and most of the southern half if 500Mb incoming trough is as deep or at least neutrally-tilted, and tracks into the state (as is being predicted so will definitely be 100% to watch). Maybe even later next week too but that other one may track further northeast into the plains. I'm also considering what's been happening in recent weeks (before this hiccup cold snap came), as the subtropical jet has been pretty strong and having major influences around here. This is usually the case in EN winters/springs, and split-jet scenarios, creating even more enhanced lift.

NWS Brownsville is calling for spring-like thunderstorm chances early next week in long-term discussion of their AFD from this afternoon. Which means could be actual MCS/MCC activity & multiple rounds. Which would be quite unusual for January. Euro has actually been doing a better job forecasting thunder around the coast lately and does show multiple rounds for southern half of state Monday - Wednesday.

AO is also forecast to go back positive for later January so (total instability-wiping) cold snaps shouldn't be a factor anymore for the rest of the month this far south after this current week. Hail threat may also be good with the early week system as 700Mb temps look to be around 0 C on both GFS & Euro (along with steep mid-level LRs on Euro).

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Still time for things to change for Monday, but GFS still shows the warm sector confined to the immediate coast and a near saturated sounding from the surface to 200 mb.  Greater than 50 knot LLJ and PW's near 1.6 inches and a divergent jet means heavy rain, which all the important globals have been seeing for several days.  GFS/CMC/Euro differ in exact amounts and locations, but all show widespread 2 inch plus amounts.  Differences become more pronounced with succeeding rain events, but the neg tilt trough is in no hurry to move out.  By Thursday evening the rain events have dropped a large area of 5 inches with some 10 inch amounts showing up.  Not ruling out severe, the warm sector coming a bit farther inland opens up SETX and the Coastal Bend, and there are hints of that for Wednesday. 

NiceDiffluenceAndEntranceRegion.png

GFSRainfallto0ZJan26.png

CanadianRainfallTo0ZJan25.png

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36 minutes ago, aggiegeog said:

Would t be surprised to see a WWA for NW half of N TX and possibly expanded a bit SE from there. 

Interestingly tho i don't think it's common to see NAM being so strong for a FZRN event in NTX while all other models keep that in OK, especially given it's now only 48 hr out. It normally the opposite! Curious to see how AFD gonna interpret the divergence. 

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Light rain been going on since very early this morning around here. 12Z BRO/CRP soundings this morning (and 0Z yesterday evening) already showing steep mid-level LRs 7 - 8, as I suspected. And deep/efficient WAA near 40 kts all the way up to 700Mb, above this still chilly but extremely shallow residual polar airmass. It doesn't even look like it's at least a kilofoot in depth from the surface around here.

Thunder does look to get going here in STX and north toward San Antonio tonight ahead of that first significant and seemingly pretty strong 500Mb shortwave coming out of northern Mex. Both globals & CAMs have been showing this pretty well, and thunder initiation near the Rio Grande around midnight (but can be sooner in the evening with all the WAA already going on observed soundings).

Parameters Tuesday - Wednesday still look interesting for stronger storms with hail & maybe damaging wind for the southern half of state. Multi-global model output still has maxed-out thunder probabilities over mid-upper coast in that timeframe also.

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1 hour ago, Stx_Thunder said:

Light rain been going on since very early this morning around here. 12Z BRO/CRP soundings this morning (and 0Z yesterday evening) already showing steep mid-level LRs 7 - 8, as I suspected. And deep/efficient WAA near 40 kts all the way up to 700Mb, above this still chilly but extremely shallow residual polar airmass. It doesn't even look like it's at least a kilofoot in depth from the surface around here.

Thunder does look to get going here in STX and north toward San Antonio tonight ahead of that first significant and seemingly pretty strong 500Mb shortwave coming out of northern Mex. Both globals & CAMs have been showing this pretty well, and thunder initiation near the Rio Grande around midnight (but can be sooner in the evening with all the WAA already going on observed soundings).

Parameters Tuesday - Wednesday still look interesting for stronger storms with hail & maybe damaging wind for the southern half of state. Multi-global model output still has maxed-out thunder probabilities over mid-upper coast in that timeframe also.

Tomorrow there should be thunder with >7C ML lapse rates, but they won't be surface based.  Now, SPC has outlooked a Marginal for Wednesday.  Tuesday looks sort of interesting S of I-10.

2024012112_NAMNST_021_28.56,-96.70_severe_ml.png

TuesdayJustS_of_Seguin..png

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4 hours ago, Ed, snow and hurricane fan said:

Tomorrow there should be thunder with >7C ML lapse rates, but they won't be surface based.


Houston, probably no thunder till daytime Monday. But in Southern TX tonight, CAMs honing in around midnight from around Rio Grande City - San Antonio (but could be earlier with deeper cells forming out west over Mex this evening). Euro has been consistent on this also the past several days. But even GFS showing stronger stuff now around that same timeframe in that area also.

It already looks to be a pretty strong incoming 500Mb and at least neutrally-tilted shortwave (seeing southeasterly lower-level flow @ 35kts on BRO/CRP radar VWP right now), so could be more organized/near sfc-based storms on mid-upper coast early Monday as at least 60 DPs on coast in most models including GFS & Euro with surface low/warm front nearby. But even further inland could have a few at minimum frequent lightning and small hail producing elevated storms with 40 - 50 kts DL shear also being shown and pretty cool 700Mb/500Mb temps (along with already steep mid-level lapse rates).

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A325279A-232A-4C23-82C3-D83BCD5F78E4.thumb.jpeg.aa45d5ae76c447994761326e81f568f5.jpeg


- Lapse rates between 700Mb & 500Mb unusually high (up to 9.1), with a decent amount of MUCAPE already in place around Brownsville this evening on 0Z observed sounding.

Effective shear surprisingly a bit up there already too (45 knots).

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* EDIT

Pretty powerful CGs going on in those storms over NE Mexico near Monterrey:

57A703EF-7120-4911-A3C2-E72E354212C1.thumb.png.837171da241dcd2cde6b334f7d9b914d.png07EAC80A-BCC5-432D-807E-25671035FB56.thumb.png.942df784cc8f2bacba208478093018e1.png

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Thunder activity here on coast last night and this morning was fair with not a lot of lightning. Even though was 2 rounds. Apparently MUCAPE itself stayed virtually non-existent overall through the entire night (even with all the substantial south-easterly WAA aloft up to 50 kts), looking at 12Z soundings this morning. Though, convective activity was fairly organized with more widespread colder cloud tops on satellite early this morning.

Actual severe and sfc-based cells looking more questionable Tuesday - Wednesday as Gulf sector doesn't look like it's really going to penetrate onshore looking at today's runs with generally 60 F DPs remaining around coast. Could still be a few (probly elevated) supercells around coast. Especially Wednesday morning.

Though thankfully, much better lightning activity still looking pretty good for southern half of state Tuesday night with some actual MUCAPE around by then with still steep LRs.

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Mostly boring wx this week into early next week. Though more cloud cover should be coming back and maybe some fog the next 2 days ahead of Friday night's incoming trough.

Convective parameters not looking impressive Friday night and with 500Mb High out over the southern Gulf, will likely limit the quality of moisture/instability return for better storms or severe. 500Mb heights are currently above 580 here in STX on 0Z observed upper air data this evening (which is fairly high for this time of year).

Models kind of over-performed on last week's thunder coverage/intensity (probly rainfall too). And the main trough that brought the last round of storms over the southern half of state last Wednesday night turned out to be more positively-tilted than forecast. I ended up missing all of that action off to the north in San Antonio & Houston regions.

Though, it was funny how it cleared out very nicely on Thursday here in STX (behind that departing trough), then all the lower level clouds and dampness came right back all day on Friday ahead of another trough that caused some other storms over NTX & SETX ahead of the cold front that evening last week.

----------

Later next week could get pretty interesting as main globals/ensembles have been showing some persistent troughing setting up out west going into week of Feb 12th.

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Rumble of thunder just now N suburbs of Houston.  Earlier than expected.  Radar not that impressive.  I don't expect severe, it is just too cool (I still don't know how 60sF work further N but not here- confirmed rope tornado with temps in the low 60s), although I suppose marginally severe hail is possible (latest HRRR shows ~1000 mb of MUCAPE.  HRRR is less enthusiastic with midnight/just after severe in the AUS-SAT corridor.

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20240332201-20240340156-GOES16-GLM-SP-EX


-  Pretty long/sharp frontal convective line moving through the northern half (will likely affect DFW later on) and some pretty large discrete clusters moving fairly rapidly around San Antonio now.

Some severe hail reports (< 2 in), few wind reports and a tornado report out there over the Rio Grande plains/Western hill country, but nothing too significant from what I'm seeing on report data feed so far this evening. And not seeing any real powerful lightning strikes on analysis anywhere.

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5 hours ago, Ed, snow and hurricane fan said:

Rumble of thunder just now N suburbs of Houston.  Earlier than expected.  Radar not that impressive.  I don't expect severe, it is just too cool (I still don't know how 60sF work further N but not here- confirmed rope tornado with temps in the low 60s), although I suppose marginally severe hail is possible (latest HRRR shows ~1000 mb of MUCAPE.  HRRR is less enthusiastic with midnight/just after severe in the AUS-SAT corridor.


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Incoming mid-upper trough into Plains is indeed a bit negatively-tilted (looking at that backed south-southeasterly flow up there in that region) on observed 0Z 500Mb & 300Mb data this evening. That could also be because of that Omega block High that's off to the northeast near the Great Lakes region now. 500Mb Heights are now < 570 in most of TX. And we're pretty much getting into the LFQ down here of that pretty strong ULL jet streak nosing in from the west. So can't rule out some persistent stronger storms through the rest of the night at least over the southern half of state.

The clusters in San Antonio region have a good chance of sustaining themselves/becoming more organized toward Houston with all the SSE inflow going on now around there too on HGX radar VWP in the lower levels this evening. And mid-level LRs are quite steep on 0Z CRP sounding (> 8 C/km between 700Mb & 500Mb) too, but.. there's that typical stout cap/EML just above 850Mb down here (though it's below 850Mb on BRO). So thunder action again doesn't look too great here in STX because of that & the incoming front tonight as there'll likely be more high-based cells like the CAMs were showing since yesterday.

 

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31 minutes ago, Stx_Thunder said:


6AAAD25B-FB3A-4B04-9308-429F8157A11E.jpeg.475faefff1cb46fdde3699e6bfd9166e.jpeg

 

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Incoming mid-upper trough into Plains is indeed a bit negatively-tilted (looking at that backed south-southeasterly flow up there in that region) on observed 0Z 500Mb & 250Mb data this evening. That could also be because of that Omega block High that's off to the northeast near the Great Lakes region now. 500Mb Heights are now < 570 in most of TX. And we're pretty much getting into the LFQ down here of that pretty strong ULL jet streak nosing in from the west. So can't rule out some persistent stronger storms through the rest of the night at least over the southern half of state.

The clusters in San Antonio region have a good chance of sustaining themselves/becoming more organized toward Houston area with all the SSE inflow going on now around there too on radar VWP in the lower levels this evening. And mid-level LRs are quite steep on 0Z CRP sounding (> 8 C/km between 700Mb & 500Mb) too, but there's that typical stout cap/EML just above 850Mb down here (though it's below 850Mb on BRO). So thunder action again doesn't look too great because of that & the incoming front in STX tonight as they'll likely be more high-based cells like the CAMs were showing since yesterday.

 

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I didn't mention the DYX area tornado was in low 60sF dewpoint,  Temps that cool never support surface based severe in HGX.  Noticing for years Wyoming having tornadoes with 65/50.  cc; @Chinook

Rainfall with earlier storms may exceed forecast Houston area 1-2"  

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20240340401-20240340756-GOES16-GLM-SP-EX

 

-  Main thunder line developing west of San Antonio. Latest 6Z HRRR and 0Z FV3 both showing it slicing through mid-upper coast (CRP - HOU) before sunrise.

Can also clearly see that developing mid-upper level Low up there off to the west of Amarillo/southeast NM/CO border.

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Big 850Mb cap amazingly weakened to literally almost nothing down here early this morning between 0Z yesterday evening's and this morning's 12Z CRP sounding ahead of that final, main convective line with the frontal boundary. So I actually managed to cash in on it down here. Didn't last long as it was pretty thin, but was decent with fairly frequent lightning (especially with such shallow convective tops on radar no more than about 30 Kft).

Already looking forward to next round of thunder events soon lol, as that alone was a good sign in this unusually active pattern of late - But it is still looking very convectively interesting going the week of Feb 12th. Even into Feb 19th the following week.

GFS/Euro & ensembles still holding onto a very unusually persistent troughing pattern for this time of year setting up out west next week of Feb 12th (at least within the active subtropical jet staying parked over northern Mexico, into TX). GFS in particular showing basically round after round of activity moving through the southern half of state during that week.

SPC was also already mentioning severe potential for next weekend as well in D 4-8 outlook, earlier today (Saturday).

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I-35 corridor from just S of Austin to San Antonio and westward toward the Mexican border has a sig severe hail risk.  I'm wondering about Houston tomorrow, little low level instability or shear but >7C lapse rates above a slight warm nose and shear with slight turning but increasing from ~40 knots at 850 mb to 70 knots at 500 mb should mean at least a chance for hail here.  Ensembles show a fairly strong looking trough in the sub tropical jet approaching California and the Baja late this week into the weekend.  Strong signal on the big 3 ensembles for significant rain down @Stx_Thunder's direction.

eps_apcpn24_us_25.png

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