Texas Winter 2016-2017

[Brent]

Euro is colder next weekend again... at DFW Friday is near 60 then temperatures rise into the upper 60s overnight, the front hits early on Saturday and daytime temperatures are in the low 40s with temperatures in the upper 20s Sunday morning and around freezing on Sunday afternoon.

Seasonal through Wednesday(highs around 60), then highs in the upper 40s/around 50 Thursday, no freeze til the weekend front.

Has some cold rain Monday/Tuesday of Christmas week at the end of the run... temperatures are in the upper 30s.

[Portastorm]

Thankfully it appears the 1983 and 1989 talk around here will go for naught. Fine by me. I still like our odds in Jan-Feb for wintry weather threats. But perhaps December will end up much milder than we all thought.

[ThunderSleetDreams]

Thankfully it appears the 1983 and 1989 talk around here will go for naught. Fine by me. I still like our odds in Jan-Feb for wintry weather threats. But perhaps December will end up much milder than we all thought.

http://i67.tinypic.com/nzlph5.png

Terrible

[Yukon Cornelius]

It's crazy how fast things change. From the talk of arctic front after front coming down, to 1983 and 89 to now a probable warmer finish to December. I don't know near as much as some of y'all do weather wise but hopefully this isn't the start of "winter cancel" and corresponds with the forecasted warm and dry winter for Texas.

[orangeblood]

No sugar coating the past few teleconnection forecasts, not good.....would flood the US with Pacific Air

[Portastorm]

It's crazy how fast things change. From the talk of arctic front after front coming down, to 1983 and 89 to now a probable warmer finish to December. I don't know near as much as some of y'all do weather wise but hopefully this isn't the start of "winter cancel" and corresponds with the forecasted warm and dry winter for Texas.

That's always the danger of getting hyped up on model runs so far out in the future. As our own wxman57 has said ... and this is a well-respected meteorologist who has worked in the field for over 30 years ... right now don't trust the models more than 2-3 days out. It's also the reason why years ago on this forum I used the Charlie Brown and Lucy analogy. The moment we buy into a winter weather model run, the football gets yanked away and we end up on our backside!

[wxman57]

In other news, my azaleas are in bloom. I guess we can safely say that spring has arrived! It was a very cold winter this past week. Glad that's over with...

[Snowman67]

Wxman57's heat miser powers are impressive. Only when he concedes that it will turn cold will I start to get excited.

[ThunderSleetDreams]

In other news, my azaleas are in bloom. I guess we can safely say that spring has arrived! It was a very cold winter this past week. Glad that's over with...

Your azaleas are going to die!

[Tireman4]

In other news, my azaleas are in bloom. I guess we can safely say that spring has arrived! It was a very cold winter this past week. Glad that's over with...

Nope. Nope. Nope. No Jedi mind tricks here sir.

[orangeblood]

With all of these supposed "upgrades" to our forecast models, it is somewhat perplexing as to why beyond 5 days there is not a lot of improvement in overall performance...we've been discussing the same issues for years now. Are we plateauing with regard to forecast accuracy ? Is our climate just entirely too complex for improvement beyond 5 days ? How can the IPCC put any weight into any of their long term climate models if we can't even model a pattern beyond 5 days ? It is assinine to think we budget billions of dollars in future spending based on computer models that can't even nail down a pattern beyond 5-7 days.....

[Cerlin]

So does this supposed warm end to December negate the possibility of Christmas winter storms?

[ThunderSleetDreams]

No sugar coating the past few teleconnection forecasts, not good.....would flood the US with Pacific Air

ftp://ftp.cdc.noaa.gov/Public/gbates/re ... ndices.png

To be fair, that's not a strong +EPO much like our current -EPO hasn't been all that anomalous.

When I think very cold or heavy Pacific air I think at least 3 sds below or above normal

[Brent]

I really don't understand how we can go from talking about 1983 or 1989 to going to a warm end of December? The two are so completely opposite it's laughable

Oh and the 12z GFS doesn't even have a freeze at DFW for the entire 16 days and has 60s and 70s for Christmas.

[orangeblood]

I really don't understand how we can go from talking about 1983 or 1989 to going to a warm end of December? The two are so completely opposite it's laughable

Oh and the 12z GFS doesn't even have a freeze at DFW for the entire 16 days and has 60s and 70s for Christmas.

It appears to be due to these models completely missing the teleconnection forecasts...they missed the EPO and WPO forecasts by a swing of almost 6 std's from 7-10 days out (going from negative 3 to almost positive 3 within 2-3 model runs) - that is about as bad as you'll see within 10 days, really difficult to forecast when guidance is that atrocious!!

[Brent]

I really don't understand how we can go from talking about 1983 or 1989 to going to a warm end of December? The two are so completely opposite it's laughable

Oh and the 12z GFS doesn't even have a freeze at DFW for the entire 16 days and has 60s and 70s for Christmas.

It appears to be due to these models completely missing the teleconnection forecasts...they missed the EPO and WPO forecasts by a swing of almost 6 std's from 7-10 days out (going from negative 3 to almost positive 3 within 2-3 model runs) - that is about as bad as you'll see within 10 days, really difficult to forecast when guidance is that atrocious!!

Honestly it's been so long since DFW hit the single digits it just makes me wonder if it's even possible anymore. The winters just aren't like they were in the 70s and 80s.

[Yukon Cornelius]

I really don't understand how we can go from talking about 1983 or 1989 to going to a warm end of December? The two are so completely opposite it's laughable

Oh and the 12z GFS doesn't even have a freeze at DFW for the entire 16 days and has 60s and 70s for Christmas.

It appears to be due to these models completely missing the teleconnection forecasts...they missed the EPO and WPO forecasts by a swing of almost 6 std's from 7-10 days out (going from negative 3 to almost positive 3 within 2-3 model runs) - that is about as bad as you'll see within 10 days, really difficult to forecast when guidance is that atrocious!!

Honestly it's been so long since DFW hit the single digits it just makes me wonder if it's even possible anymore. The winters just aren't like they were in the 70s and 80s.

This is my same thinking. Does our atmosphere even support really cold anymore? Is it even possible these days? Winters are complete opposites of what I remember them being as a kid. It seemed rare to have a warm Christmas back then, now it seems like the norm.

[orangeblood]

GFS-Para and Euro continues to show winter storm potential in the Dec. 18-19th time frame...

[ThunderSleetDreams]

It appears to be due to these models completely missing the teleconnection forecasts...they missed the EPO and WPO forecasts by a swing of almost 6 std's from 7-10 days out (going from negative 3 to almost positive 3 within 2-3 model runs) - that is about as bad as you'll see within 10 days, really difficult to forecast when guidance is that atrocious!!

Honestly it's been so long since DFW hit the single digits it just makes me wonder if it's even possible anymore. The winters just aren't like they were in the 70s and 80s.

This is my same thinking. Does our atmosphere even support really cold anymore? Is it even possible these days? Winters are complete opposites of what I remember them being as a kid. It seemed rare to have a warm Christmas back then, now it seems like the norm.

Read somewhere large scale patterns tend to happen in 30 year blocks. If you recall they late 50s through mid 80s had some severe Winters and from the late 80s through the late 2000s were mild. I read that around 2012 we entered another more severe cold period with little solar activity and colder Winters. For the most part, that has been correct.

[Golf7070]

GFS-Para and Euro continues to show winter storm potential in the Dec. 18-19th time frame...

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis ... _us_29.png

Orangeblood， got a couple questions. Why is the pattern changing like this? Is it due to mjo on the move? Ive always thought 8-2 is colder phases. Also，what are ur thoughts on the strat stuff? Im reading the PV fixing to intensify and thats the end of winter for the most part. Do you agree? Im not sure what we need that we dont have now. Even youself said euro ensembles are cold and thats as good as we got in terms of model predictions