Texas winter wx thread (2009-2010)

[txagwxman]

Is DFW/FTW going to get some on Friday afternoon/evening...still a tough call....



850 - 2C, < 540 thickness...boundary layer temps are kinda warm though...going to be close.

[srainhoutx]

Well the 12Z ECMWF paints an interesting picture for parts of TX. Impressive low near Galveston and on to New Orleans and yet another dump of cold air.

[txagwxman]

Yes it does...question is will the boundary layer temps be cold enough...College Station would get 1-2" if that verifies.

[srainhoutx]

If the boundry layer can dive further S, another yesterday reduex.

Edit to add the low deepens as it moves E near New Orleans. Could get real interesting if the ECMWF is correct.

[Portastorm]

Nope. Winter's over south of a San Angelo-Waco-College Station line.

Or at least that is what Lucy is telling me!

[txagwxman]

Nope. Winter's over south of a San Angelo-Waco-College Station line.

Or at least that is what Lucy is telling me!

Baloney...it snowed in Houston in March 1963---the day my parents moved to Canada.

[srainhoutx]

Nope. Winter's over south of a San Angelo-Waco-College Station line.

Or at least that is what Lucy is telling me!

Baloney...it snowed in Houston in March 1963---the day my parents moved to Canada.

I have pictures at my Mom's house to prove it too.

[txagwxman]

2005- year of the hurricane.
2010- year of the El Nino winter storms.

[orangeblood]

GFS doesn't see anything significant for Wichita Falls or the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex. The UKMET looks "iffy" as well. The precip seems to end before temps get cold enough based on flipping through the maps. Euro has a more significant storm. Big question is what airmass will be overhead as it moves by? GFS did fairly well with yesterday's system.

Looking at the meteograms, below, I see nothing significant. Just quite "warm" air in both places. Sounding for Wichita Falls (GFS-based) does show sub-freezing air about 2000 feet above the warmer layer at the surface, but VERY LITTLE moisture once the air cools enough for snow aloft.

Wichita Falls:


Dallas-Ft. Worth:

The GFS is notorious for not handling multiple branches of the jet very well. If you analyze the 500 mb flow on the GFS run, you'll see that the energy coming down from the northern branch never phases with the Southern branch in the deep south. That energy just dissapears out of the flow. Until it appears to handle both of the jets in a better way, I think its safe to say this model is an outlier.

[Portastorm]

Nope. Winter's over south of a San Angelo-Waco-College Station line.

Or at least that is what Lucy is telling me!

Baloney...it snowed in Houston in March 1963---the day my parents moved to Canada.

I have pictures at my Mom's house to prove it too.

You guys are funny!

I should stop it with the troll-like posts, right?!

Austin has had three or four March snowfalls on record, also ... the most recent being March 2, 1965, when it snowed two inches.

[Ntxw]

yes.. another thing this is well known for ANYONE into meteorology and iam NOT trying to be a basher
of the ft worth nws office BUT you do not have to have a REAL SOLID COLD AIRMASS in place
for snow YES you have to have a source of cold air and cold air there but it does not have to be
like other cold masses we have had prev this winter. i can remember some of the heaviest
snowfalls being w/border line temps and at that point it does not matter if the temp is 32, 33
or 23 if its coming down hard enough it will stick!

Remember, this is the same office that NEVER got the forecast right on the Snowmageddon event. So I wouldn't put much stock into what they're saying at this point in time...

I would give them some credit though. Yes, they missed the Snowmageddon, as did most any public-facing forecaster. As some of the TV mets said in the DMN article a few pages back, you just don't go on-camera and forecast the biggest snowfall in history - especially when none of the models supported it.

Most of the time, they do a great job, as do our pro-mets, and I would trust their guidance.

There doesn't appear to be anything like that in the cards with these next two systems.

To be quite blunt, if some are forecasting a 'major event' or 'massive system' for the Metroplex out of this, based on what we see now, I would quickly write it off as hype. There is just nothing credible that points to that right now.

Actually, most of the other global models out were consistent about a significant snowfall several days out however they chose to stick to the two that did not agree with the rest, outliers. Of course forecasting a record snowfall in these parts is nearly impossible, but to disregard such is not a wise decision. The models have shown the possibility the past few days they could be swapping now or simply going through hiccups it's too early to tell. So really what they say now is mostly based on climatology and the recent few runs of models saying it won't happen.

[Tejas89]

I seem to remember DFW getting a decent Easter (early April) snowfall within the last 5 years or so. Or maybe I'm imagining that.

[txagwxman]

Wow look at that ECMWF....

[Ntxw]

Euro maintains that storm as a cutoff low throughout. Pointing out snow all the way possibly down to Houston area.

[msstateguy83]

we could be talking BIG time storm then nwtx??!

[Storm Tracker SA-CS]

do you guys think that texas is in for another winter storm next week or are we done for the winter?

[txagwxman]

:uarrow: Euro maintains that storm as a cutoff low throughout. Pointing out snow all the way possibly down to Houston area.

Cold core lows could do the trick for N. Houston...I have seen it snow in Atlanta in April underneath a cold core low.

[wxman57]

Precip would be long-gone by the time the ECMWF shows cold enough air overhead in SE TX.

[wxman57]

:uarrow: Euro maintains that storm as a cutoff low throughout. Pointing out snow all the way possibly down to Houston area.

Cold core lows could do the trick for N. Houston...I have seen it snow in Atlanta in April underneath a cold core low.

Or December of 2008's event. This one doesn't look as cold as the low passes us, but it's still a ways out.

[Ntxw]

we could be talking BIG time storm then nwtx??!

Indications are it has a real possibility, txagwxman just said cold core lows can do the trick which is very true. They have their own bouts of cold, track will be key, but simply based on THIS run, Texas panhandle down the red river valley through parts of central and S\E Texas, winter is far from over.