Texas Winter 2016-2017

[Brent]

Two benchmarks for me... I grew up in Alabama so the blizzard of 1993 I was 4 years old lol(still the only time I've seen more than 4 or 5 inches) and Hurricane Opal for hurricane season(which was still a hurricane 4 hours inland). Everything since I can remember watching or tracking.

lol reminds me of being a kid and watching the weather channel all day and night when there was something brewing in the tropics.I also would call Dr Neil Frank and harass him on the khou weather line lol.

The weather channel was it back in the day nowadays I hardly watch it unless something huge is going on

[Brent]

GFS has nearly the entire country above normal on temperatures a few days before Christmas this run. Has lows near 70 on December 23rd for most of us.

It's just disgusting... where did 1983 go?

Edit: A cold front comes through Texas on Christmas Eve but there's a blowtorch on the east coast Christmas morning. lol

[Cheyenne ridge]

GFS has nearly the entire country above normal on temperatures a few days before Christmas this run. Has lows near 70 on December 23rd for most of us.

It's just disgusting... where did 1983 go?

Edit: A cold front comes through Texas on Christmas Eve but there's a blowtorch on the east coast Christmas morning. lol

looks like we are going back to a positive state which means good old pacific air.Even this week's air mass isn't very cold.Two days ago the high here was projected to be in the low single digits,now it looks like Saturday wil be our chilly day with a high of 16.

[Brent]

GFS has 79 on Saturday at DFW, record high is 81

0z Euro has upper 60s Saturday at DFW, then Sunday it stays below freezing at DFW all day, and Monday only gets to about 35. No precip this run.

[gatorcane]

SE CONUS ridge looks to flex its muscles as we head towards Christmas, keeping much of the country especially SE much above normal. Seems the new norm for December the past few years!

[Snowman67]

WXman57 - I come in peace. I am ready to negotiate. You have bottled up the cold air up north. Can we work toward a compromise that will allow us to have a couple of winter episodes this season? I look forward to working with you.

[CaptinCrunch]

Here a nice link to the recorded dates of winter precip around Dallas/Fort Worth during the December 24th-25th time frame.

http://www.weather.gov/fwd/whitechristmas

[wxman57]

WXman57 - I come in peace. I am ready to negotiate. You have bottled up the cold air up north. Can we work toward a compromise that will allow us to have a couple of winter episodes this season? I look forward to working with you.

You are too late. My azaleas are in bloom, meaning winter is over. I notice the 6Z GFS-parallel run dropped the big Christmas front with the 1055mb high in favor of warm southerly winds across Texas.

All (most) kidding aside, I've been saying don't trust any model beyond the next few days. The pattern we're moving into is going to pose problems for the models. Of course, if the models say it will be nice and warm then I'd like to believe them...

[orangeblood]

12Z GFS coming more in-line with the Euro, much stronger/colder with the Arctic HP this weekend. What is puzzling is the UL Energy coming out of the southwest, it seems to completely fall apart as it crosses into the southern US early next week - cold air is in place, moisture is returning, but where is the Upper Level Energy ???? Something to monitor because if it can maintain it's strength, we could have a decent winter storm across the southern plains.



Moisture Return


Cold Surface Air is holding in place

[ThunderSleetDreams]

FLIP-FLOP.... this GFS run is much colder than the previous. It never really warms up before Christmas and stays seasonally cool.

It looks like that NE PAC cyclone is more of a "one-off" transient change as opposed to an overall driving force change. The pattern switches back very quickly to a cool one just in time for me to go break a leg in Montana ..... in below zero weather.

[wxman57]

Projected 500mb pattern is not a good one for driving Arctic air south to Texas over the next couple of weeks. The fast zonal flow across the U.S. will make it hard to get really cold down here. Looking less like we may see a 1983-like pattern this month. I wonder if Houston will even see a freeze this month...

[Portastorm]

Projected 500mb pattern is not a good one for driving Arctic air south to Texas over the next couple of weeks. The fast zonal flow across the U.S. will make it hard to get really cold down here. Looking less like we may see a 1983-like pattern this month. I wonder if Houston will even see a freeze this month...

Larry Cosgrove over the weekend with the issuance of his forecasts talked about this and how, until we see some legitimate high-latitude blocking, these cold shots will be quick ones and won't last. He believes we may see such blocking begin in early January.

[orangeblood]

FLIP-FLOP.... this GFS run is much colder than the previous. It never really warms up before Christmas and stays seasonally cool.

It looks like that NE PAC cyclone is more of a "one-off" transient change as opposed to an overall driving force change. The pattern switches back very quickly to a cool one just in time for me to go break a leg in Montana ..... in below zero weather.

Yep, these models are all over the place for week 2...12Z tanks the EPO again, bringing back the Christmas Day Strom

[ThunderSleetDreams]

FLIP-FLOP.... this GFS run is much colder than the previous. It never really warms up before Christmas and stays seasonally cool.

It looks like that NE PAC cyclone is more of a "one-off" transient change as opposed to an overall driving force change. The pattern switches back very quickly to a cool one just in time for me to go break a leg in Montana ..... in below zero weather.

Yep, these models are all over the place for week 2...12Z tanks the EPO again, bringing back the Christmas Day Strom

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis ... cus_47.png

Wait for it..... Cat 5 in the Gulf!

[ThunderSleetDreams]

EPO goes in the tank from hour 276 onward....

[ThunderSleetDreams]

I'm not sure what's more interesting about this map in la la land. The massive amount of blocking or the GOA or the 591 Bermuda High.

[orangeblood]

12z Canadian makes much more sense holding together UL energy coming out of southwest, quite the ice storm next Monday

[Brent]

I just noticed on the GFS DFW goes from 80 degrees Saturday afternoon to 21 degrees Sunday morning.

[ThunderSleetDreams]

I just noticed on the GFS DFW goes from 80 degrees Saturday afternoon to 21 degrees Sunday morning.

Which is why I believe neither will happen. I've only witnessed a temp drop like that twice. Once in December 1989 (77 to 23 in a few hours) and once in Columbus, Ohio in grad school, where it is much more likely to do that as Fall transitions to Winter.

I don't believe Saturday will be as warm as models are predicting, and while I think Sunday will be cold, I don't think anyone from DFW southward sees anything below 28-29.

[Brent]

Euro is warmer on Saturday too, has DFW at 79 degrees at 21z. Front incoming.

At 0z Sunday(3 hours later), it's dropped almost 30 degrees.

At 6z Sunday, it's 28 degrees.

23 degrees Sunday morning, almost as bad as the GFS.