Texas Winter 2013-2014

[Ntxw]

Highlight for me was watching the evolution of the NE Pac warm pool. It's an extremely rare event to see such a feature isolated (not ENSO related PDO). The fact that we may not see such a set up again like that for decades sits the value of what really happened. 1899, 1917, 1962, 1976, and for a brief time 1989 were such years with that rare feature. Cold, ice, and snow I've seen before and will probably see again but that was the one thing that really made it memorable for me. It produced as many big highs as we will ever see in a lifetime in just one season.

Lowlight of the season for me would be snow. I do realize that the coldest winters (shallow cold) often do not yield much snow since the air masses often overwhelms moisture, but I would liked to have seen at least one big snow event.

It was great going through it with all of you on this board, such a weather savvy bunch. I'm very happy we blew away the post record, only bad thing is I go through old winter threads to see weather set ups and use them as guidance as well for pattern recognition. Not easy when you have to go through such an expansive amount .

[ravyrn]

Highlight: All the cold
Lowlight: Porta's issues with


I think I had a trace of snow and two light icing events here in Jacksonville. Here's a recap of my winter (though I don't believe I uploaded pics from the second icing event).

[Texas Snowman]

Ntxw, month of March isn't over. So we still have an issue to deal with - will DFW get another freeze or two?

[Ntxw]

Ntxw, month of March isn't over. So we still have an issue to deal with - will DFW get another freeze or two?

I say we can sneak in a couple of freezes! Average date of last freeze is tomorrow. Now of course wxman57's heat miser side would post GFS meteograms showing the lowest DFW getting on it is 39F

[dhweather]

Close but no banana this morning, 34 at DFW.

[Ntxw]

Models are quietly building an obnoxiously cold spring air mass worthy of mid-winter over North America. -EPO nosedive supports it with big highs showing up on guidance to follow it and you know how that usually turns out. It's not over till the fat lady sings, don't start planting yet folks.

[CaptinCrunch]

I wont be surprised to see frost on a early April morning across NTX.

[CaptinCrunch]

Close but no banana this morning, 34 at DFW.

30 degrees @ 5:50 this morning at the house in S. Tarrant. Dogs wasn't happy about it...lol

[wxman57]

The 00Z Euro ensembles say that the airmass currently over Texas is the coldest that Texas will see through March 28th.

[weatherdude1108]

Models are quietly building an obnoxiously cold spring air mass worthy of mid-winter over North America. -EPO nosedive supports it with big highs showing up on guidance to follow it and you know how that usually turns out. It's not over till the fat lady sings, don't start planting yet folks.

Funny you should mention that. We are planning on planting some natives/adapted plants/trees this weekend. Our beds look very barren. Haven't done much with it the past couple years.

I'll take my chances. Natives/adapted plants have a higher tolerance for extremes in temp.

[Lagreeneyes03]

The 00Z Euro ensembles say that the airmass currently over Texas is the coldest that Texas will see through March 28th.

I hope so. NASCAR is the first weekend in April and there's nothing worse than being cold at NASCAR.

[TheProfessor]

The 00Z Euro ensembles say that the airmass currently over Texas is the coldest that Texas will see through March 28th.

I hope so. NASCAR is the first weekend in April and there's nothing worse than being cold at NASCAR.

Are you sure? Because I'd rather tolerate some cold than having to get through a panicked crowd while a wedge tornado spins towards the speed way.

[Ntxw]

Major storm signal +- days towards the equinox. Keep on your toes

There is still that signal. Very powerful west coast ridging is going to send a system to Texas from the northern branch. Past few days they have sent it to MX but have shifted away into possibly a cut off low along the Texas coast. Cold(er) air is going to pour in behind this system. While there is an outside chance this could be a winter storm for somebody, it is worth keeping one eye on towards the Equinox.

[wxman57]

Not a lot of March-like temps over the next 2 weeks, particularly near the end of the month. Keep in mind that temps in the extended graphic are only for 7am and 7pm, not during max heating.

[TarrantWx]

What is everyone's take on the severe weather threat in north texas Saturday afternoon? IMO, looks pretty interesting. According to the 18z NAM, quite a potent shortwave will be kicking through right around peak heating. Looks like a weak triple point will set up around Brownwood (if the 18z NAM verifies) with a warm front extending to the east pretty close to the metroplex. Dewpoints will be around 60, CAPE around 1000, pretty decent directional shear, although speed shear isn't ideal. Certainly not an ideal setup, but interesting nonetheless. Maybe a couple supercells could get going. It will be interesting to see where the warm front sets up as any supercell that forms and rides the warm front might be able to take advantage of additional mesoscale helicity.

[Ntxw]

What is everyone's take on the severe weather threat in north texas Saturday afternoon? IMO, looks pretty interesting. According to the 18z NAM, quite a potent shortwave will be kicking through right around peak heating. Looks like a weak triple point will set up around Brownwood (if the 18z NAM verifies) with a warm front extending to the east pretty close to the metroplex. Dewpoints will be around 60, CAPE around 1000, pretty decent directional shear, although speed shear isn't ideal. Certainly not an ideal setup, but interesting nonetheless. Maybe a couple supercells could get going. It will be interesting to see where the warm front sets up as any supercell that forms and rides the warm front might be able to take advantage of additional mesoscale helicity.

Too cool, cold front is going to outrun those storms. Looks more like majority of it is a large shield of rain rather than super cells or a line. Areas closer to the gulf in SE Texas looks better for some severe.

[TarrantWx]

What is everyone's take on the severe weather threat in north texas Saturday afternoon? IMO, looks pretty interesting. According to the 18z NAM, quite a potent shortwave will be kicking through right around peak heating. Looks like a weak triple point will set up around Brownwood (if the 18z NAM verifies) with a warm front extending to the east pretty close to the metroplex. Dewpoints will be around 60, CAPE around 1000, pretty decent directional shear, although speed shear isn't ideal. Certainly not an ideal setup, but interesting nonetheless. Maybe a couple supercells could get going. It will be interesting to see where the warm front sets up as any supercell that forms and rides the warm front might be able to take advantage of additional mesoscale helicity.

Too cool, cold front is going to outrun those storms. Looks more like majority of it is a large shield of rain rather than super cells or a line. Areas closer to the gulf in SE Texas looks better for some severe.

NAM doesn't have the cold front roaring through until after midnight. Sure, it might be underestimating the speed of the cold front, as has been the theme all winter, but it might leave at least a small window for some good storms to get going. 12z NAM shows the same thing. Certainly bears watching IMO

[Ntxw]

NAM doesn't have the cold front roaring through until after midnight. Sure, it might be underestimating the speed of the cold front, as has been the theme all winter, but it might leave at least a small window for some good storms to get going. 12z NAM shows the same thing. Certainly bears watching IMO

I hope you are right, I would love to see it and plenty of rain. Models have been lowering heights each run which is a sign it might be cooler than the models are projecting in the atmosphere. It's looking more like a cold seasons system than a spring one. It needs to cut off to our west or winds need to back more ahead of it. These typically tend to underachieve in the severe weather department in NTX but often overachieve along the gulf when it goes negative tilt.

[TarrantWx]

NAM doesn't have the cold front roaring through until after midnight. Sure, it might be underestimating the speed of the cold front, as has been the theme all winter, but it might leave at least a small window for some good storms to get going. 12z NAM shows the same thing. Certainly bears watching IMO

I hope you are right, I would love to see it and plenty of rain. Models have been lowering heights each run which is a sign it might be cooler than the models are projecting in the atmosphere. It's looking more like a cold seasons system than a spring one. It needs to cut off to our west or winds need to back more ahead of it. These typically tend to underachieve in the severe weather department in NTX but often overachieve along the gulf when it goes negative tilt.

Yeah, I have to admit there might be a little bit of wishful thinking biasing my opinion here. I also think it depends on how much junkvection gets going early in the day. Depending on how quickly the morning rain moves out we might have more of an opportunity for some meaningful destabilization. We'll see what the 00z model suite says.

[TheProfessor]

What is everyone's take on the severe weather threat in north texas Saturday afternoon? IMO, looks pretty interesting. According to the 18z NAM, quite a potent shortwave will be kicking through right around peak heating. Looks like a weak triple point will set up around Brownwood (if the 18z NAM verifies) with a warm front extending to the east pretty close to the metroplex. Dewpoints will be around 60, CAPE around 1000, pretty decent directional shear, although speed shear isn't ideal. Certainly not an ideal setup, but interesting nonetheless. Maybe a couple supercells could get going. It will be interesting to see where the warm front sets up as any supercell that forms and rides the warm front might be able to take advantage of additional mesoscale helicity.

a CAPE of 1000 J/Kg isn't very favorable for severe weather. It needs to be closer to 2,000 J/kg, And it needs to be near 3,000 J/Kg to attract storm chasers who want to collect data. Ant the big events are usually higher than that, I pretty sure the May 1999 Moore, Oklahoma tornado had a CAPE near 7,500 J/Kg. So with a CAPE as low as 1000 J/Kg, I'm not expecting anything much worse than what storm prediction center is forecasting ,which is some large hail and maybe a couple of tornadoes. Unless we have one of those freak events like Jarrell, TX 1997 where their CAPE increased by like 5,000 J/Kg causing a mini tornado outbreak.