Texas Summer - 2013

[Tireman4]

How long NTWX? Local met says through 26th of June.

[Ntxw]

How long NTWX? Local met says through 26th of June.

Normals are creeping up to the 90s so this first ridge is just the annual step up to the climo towards summer solstice. Looks like a 3-5 day stretch of 98s 99s and occasional 100s for most areas so that takes us to about next weekend. Beyond that there is a -EPO taking over however in the summer the northerly flows don't bring much relief. We have to look to the tropics for rise in moisture or systems to cut it down but that's not easy to see in the long run.

[horselattitudesfarm]

Now they're even predicting dying Northwest-Flow events: Per NOAA forecast discussion for the NTX area:

"SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP THIS
AFTERNOON ACROSS THE CENTRAL PLAINS AND THESE WILL LIKELY MOVE
SOUTHWARD OVERNIGHT. ANY COMPLEX OF STORMS THAT DEVELOPS WILL
LIKELY BE WEAKENING AS IT MOVES INTO NORTH TEXAS"

Anyway, I have my hopes real low so if anything happens tonight it will be a pleasant suprise.

[Ntxw]

Now they're even predicting dying Northwest-Flow events: Per NOAA forecast discussion for the NTX area:

"SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP THIS
AFTERNOON ACROSS THE CENTRAL PLAINS AND THESE WILL LIKELY MOVE
SOUTHWARD OVERNIGHT. ANY COMPLEX OF STORMS THAT DEVELOPS WILL
LIKELY BE WEAKENING AS IT MOVES INTO NORTH TEXAS"

Anyway, I have my hopes real low so if anything happens tonight it will be a pleasant suprise.

Looks like maybe a quarter of an inch. Need to get the vegetation watered in a large real estate and green before the hotter air sets in to keep it at bay. Not much luck with rain for Houston or San Antonio, DFW and Austin have a better chance.

[Ntxw]

Dumping rain this morning over the metroplex from slow moving MCS, very surprised it held together this well.

[horselattitudesfarm]

Dumping rain this morning over the metroplex from slow moving MCS, very surprised it held together this well.

Slow gentle rain over our house for about 2 hours. We tallied .3 inches. We are about at that little red spot inside the red circle on this capture from the wunderground website DFW precipitation estimate. I thought we were doing well until I pulled up this radar image.



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[Ntxw]

That's such bad luck! I got about an inch and the airport about the same which was more than the quarter hpc and model's output.

[horselattitudesfarm]

:uarrow: That's such bad luck! I got about an inch and the airport about the same which was more than the quarter hpc and model's output.

Its strange, but since about yr 2000, after a flooding microburst over our neighborhood July 2nd., every summer we tend to get less than surrounding areas, however, in the late fall and winter, we tend to get more than the metroplex in general. This especially holds true with microscale convective events. Its much more unusual for a mesoscale event to donut-hole us like this. I think its because there are influences inhibiting convection in our area that influence microscale stuff, but synoptic-scale systems, like in fall and winter, are too large to be affected by whatever inhibits our convection. Just a theory, and maybe totally incorrect, but from my observations, and by comparing rainfall from my brother's house in west Plano with my rainfall here, there seems to be a pattern I'm observing...at least since 2000.

[Ntxw]

From FW this afternoon, very good discussion especially with the green vegetation and rainfall. The Euro has been giving some hint of a weak feature coming from California/Baja that may disturb the high pressure and give some popcorn showers underneath, not expecting it to deviate much though. I want to see something try to get going under the high in the western gulf before feeling confident about such an outcome.

***
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORT WORTH TX
324 PM CDT SUN JUN 9 2013

.DISCUSSION...
AN UPPER LEVEL TROUGH WILL MOVE EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI BY MONDAY
MORNING WHILE AN UPPER RIDGE BUILDS IN FROM THE WEST. THIS UPPER
RIDGE WILL BECOME THE DOMINANT WEATHER FEATURE THROUGH THE
WEEK...BRINGING LARGE SCALE SUBSIDENCE...A MOSTLY CLEAR SKY AND
HOT TEMPERATURES. AFTERNOON HIGH TEMPERATURES THROUGH THE WEEK
WILL BE MOSTLY IN THE 90S AND HIGH HUMIDITY VALUES WILL KEEP
AFTERNOON HEAT INDEX VALUES AROUND THE CENTURY MARK. WE WERE
ANTICIPATING SEVERAL SITES REACHING TRIPLE DIGIT TEMPERATURES THE
LATTER HALF OF THE WEEK. HOWEVER...THE COPIOUS RAINFALL OVERNIGHT
SHOULD KEEP VEGETATION GREEN...SOIL MOISTURE HIGH AND AFTERNOON
TEMPS JUST A COUPLE OF DEGREES COOLER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT.
OVERNIGHT LOWS SHOULD BE MOSTLY IN THE 70S.

LOOKING BEYOND NEXT WEEKEND...THE UPPER RIDGE SHOULD HOLD IN
PLACE AS WE ENTER THE THIRD WEEK OF JUNE. HOWEVER...THE GFS DOES
TRY TO MOVE THE RIDGE AXIS BACK TO NEW MEXICO/COLORADO BEYOND
ABOUT 300 HOURS WITH A SLIGHT WEAKENING. OBVIOUSLY...CAN NOT PUT
MUCH CONFIDENCE IN THIS SOLUTION THAT FAR OUT. HOWEVER...LOOKING
FOR ANY WEAKNESS IN THE RIDGE AND SIGNS OF PRECIP IS USUALLY
COMMON FORECASTING PRACTICE DURING A TYPICAL NORTH TEXAS SUMMER.

[South Texas Storms]

Had a great day at work today because of an unexpected storm! Here is a picture I took as the storms moved into San Antonio!


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[horselattitudesfarm]

Wow! What I'd give to see such a well developed storm like that in our area. Man, I miss those!

[Ntxw]

The models (other globals aside from GFS) continues to show a weakness in the ridge with some help from the low in northern Mexico. It would likely bring some of us down closer to normals later in the week and small chances of thunderstorms, SE Texas in particular through seabreezes. The Caribbean and Bay of Campeche continues to be the suspect areas of higher tropical moisture and maybe weak development. This will play a bigger role for the southern half of the state and bears watching for changes second half of June.

[Rgv20]

Brownsville NWS morning discussion with regards to possible tropical trouble in the BOC.

LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH MONDAY/...THE THEME OF THE LONG
TERM HAS NOT CHANGED. A MID LEVEL RIDGE TO THE WEST WILL ELONGATE
EAST OVER NORTH TEXAS AND THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY...LEAVING A
WEAKNESS UNDERNEATH IT OVER NORTH CENTRAL MEXICO...DEEP SOUTH TEXAS
AND THE RGV...AND THE WEST GULF OF MEXICO. THE MODELS ARE IN GOOD
GENERAL AGREEMENT. THE RIDGE WILL RECENTER OVER EAST TEXAS THROUGH
THE WEEKEND...BUT WILL SHIFT BACK TO THE WEST A BIT NEXT WEEK. IN
THE MEAN TIME...HIGH PRESSURE OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO WILL GENERATE
MDT SOUTHEAST WINDS LOCALLY...SCATTERED SHOWERS OVER THE SOUTHWEST
GULF...AND A DAILY MIX OF CLOUDS AND SUN. TEMPS WILL RUN NEAR TO
SLIGHTLY ABOVE NORMAL. SHOWERS MAY OCCASIONALLY MOVE INTO THE LOWER
TEXAS COASTAL WATERS OR LOWER VALLEY FROM OVER THE GULF...OR DEVELOP
ALONG A SEA BREEZE. AS THE RIDGE RETREATS WEST LATE THIS WEEKEND AND
EARLY NEXT WEEK...A TROPICAL WAVE WILL MOVE ACROSS THE CARIBBEAN AND
BRING PLENTIFUL RAINFALL TO THE YUCATAN PENINSULA AND PRESSURE FALLS
TO THE SOUTHWEST GULF AS IT MOVES WEST. THE GFS KEEPS THE TROPICAL
FEATURE IN THE SOUTHWEST GULF OR BAY OF CAMPECHE THROUGH THE MIDDLE
TO END OF NEXT WEEK...WHILE THE ECMWF BRINGS A WEAK CIRCULATION
NORTHWEST TOWARD THE CWA NEXT THURSDAY...OR DAY 10. NEEDLESS TO
SAY...THIS IS AT THE END OF THE MODEL RUN AND STILL SUBJECT TO SOME
UNCERTAINTY.


In my opinion I think the forecast models may be too quick on developing something down there as the main push of the MJO is forecast for the last week of June. Plenty of time to keep an eye tho

[Ntxw]

San Antonio and DFW's southernmost counties are getting sea-breeze showers this afternoon, I bet South Texas Storms is loving that! Lets see if the clouds and higher humidity will keep the temps from hitting 100 this week officially.

[South Texas Storms]

I sure did Ntxw! 3rd straight day of rain = A very happy South Texas Storms!! South Texas will likely see more scattered showers and thunderstorms throughout the next 5 days as well.



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[horselattitudesfarm]

Thats a beautiful sight

The models (other globals aside from GFS) continues to show a weakness in the ridge with some help from the low in northern Mexico. It would likely bring some of us down closer to normals later in the week and small chances of thunderstorms, SE Texas in particular through seabreezes. The Caribbean and Bay of Campeche continues to be the suspect areas of higher tropical moisture and maybe weak development. This will play a bigger role for the southern half of the state and bears watching for changes second half of June.

Drove into some big juicy seabreeze showers today while driving south of Austin. It was so nice to get that kind of air conditioning and to get the bugs off the windshield The whole sky stayed full of mid-level cloudiness the rest of the day with mid 70's and the smell of wet green grass. I also saw real rainshafts that made the horizon disappear into a wall of white rain, something I haven't seen at my house in Dallas in over a year.

[horselattitudesfarm]

On the coast now near Corpus with heavy warm air and cumulus trying to rebuild out over the gulf as it was getting dark. I wonder if there will be enough convergence out there to build storms tonight ? I get the feeling it will rain here before morning.

[horselattitudesfarm]

There's that 'Red River' thing again: (even the NWS talks about it)

"BEYOND SATURDAY LEFT THE FORECAST DRY AT THIS TIME. WE ARE NOT
EXPECTED TO BE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF STRONG RIDGING
ALOFT...HOWEVER THE MODELS OFFER UP SOME VERY DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS
FROM ONE ANOTHER REGARDING THE LARGE SCALE FLOW REGIME FROM
SUNDAY THROUGH EARLY NEXT WEEK. THE GFS IS THE MOST AGGRESSIVE
WITH BRINGING ABOUT A RETURN TO RIDGING AND THUS A DRY FORECAST
FOR EARLY NEXT WEEK WHILE THE ECMWF AND CANADIAN BOTH INDICATE WE
MAY FIND OURSELVES IN A COOLER AND WETTER PATTERN.

BOTH THE CANADIAN AND ECMWF INDICATE SOME SORT OF MID-LEVEL
DEFORMATION ZONE ROUGHLY ORIENTED ALONG THE RED RIVER EARLY NEXT
WEEK. THIS MAY EXPLAIN WHY BOTH MODELS SEEM TO LATCH ONTO A NEARLY
STATIONARY H850 FRONT ALONG THE RED RIVER FOR EARLY NEXT WEEK
WHICH WOULD BE A FAVORABLE BREEDING GROUND FOR SCATTERED TO
NUMEROUS THUNDERSTORMS. HOWEVER...IT IS DIFFICULT TO SAY IF THE
FRONT IS THE RESULT OF SYNOPTIC SCALE MOTIONS LIKE DEFORMATION OR
NORTHERN STREAM SHORT WAVE TROUGHS...OR IS THE REMNANT OF
PERSISTENT THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY MOVING ACROSS KS AND OK EARLY
NEXT WEEK. IF THE FRONT IS NOT THE RESULT OF THUNDERSTORM
ACTIVITY...THEN CONFIDENCE IN THE FRONT ACTUALLY BEING SOMEWHERE
CLOSE TO THE RED RIVER EARLY NEXT WEEK WILL BE MUCH HIGHER AND
WILL LIKELY RESULT IN THE INCLUSION OF POPS IN FUTURE FORECASTS.

I like the 'wetter and cooler' thing, I like it alot!

[Ntxw]

I like the 'wetter and cooler' thing, I like it alot!

It's all relative of course! This upper low is really making havoc with the heat ridge. You know it's summer when the NWS says southerly wind is cold air advection gulf > Chihuahua desert, though it's been raining even there! The PDO went positive finally last month, could this be a result with weaker ridges? Maybe...

Not peak heating yet but there is very few 100s out there in the state if any right now. Last weekend the models were pointing to widespread 100s today and tomorrow being the peak. Luckily that has not come to fruition thanks to vegetation and sea-breazes!



Wxman57 must be shivering in his boots, this is too cool for a heatwave for his liking!

[Tireman4]

Woo Hoo, although the tropical airmass is not fun.