Texas Winter 2015-2016

[Brent]

Breaking News: The 18z GFS has rain next Monday across Texas!!! Hey, I'm getting desperate here for anything...

This is the same storm(just delayed) that is the big snowstorm east of here on the Euro

[Portastorm]

Saw an interesting tweet from NWSFO Fort Worth's Victor Murphy -- Austin has recorded 0.34" of precipitation so far in 2016. This is the driest start to a year on record since 1999.

[Brent]

More fantasy GFS snow...

[Ntxw]

Euro is warm, 70s throughout and even tries for 80 near the end..dry. Lets just end this sorry excuse for a winter and bring in winter 2016-2017.

This winter has been dominated by +EPO and +PNA two features of super Nino's, so while the warm winter path was different than 2011-2012 the result is the same with those two indexes. Hard to overcome that even with -AO.

[Portastorm]

Euro is warm, 70s throughout and even tries for 80 near the end..dry. Lets just end this sorry excuse for a winter and bring in winter 2016-2017.

This winter has been dominated by +EPO and +PNA two features of super Nino's, so while the warm winter path was different than 2011-2012 the result is the same with those two indexes. Hard to overcome that even with -AO.

The thing is that I thought the pattern would change eventually, right?! JB's old "rubberband" analogy ... it always seemed to work. But the damn pattern isn't changing. Western ridge/Eastern trough. No signs of change through 10 days.

Another spirit-crushing "winter" for many Texans. Too bad there's no such thing as karma in the weather world because we're owed a Day After Tomorrow type winter.

[Ntxw]

The thing is that I thought the pattern would change eventually, right?! JB's old "rubberband" analogy ... it always seemed to work. But the damn pattern isn't changing. Western ridge/Eastern trough. No signs of change through 10 days.

Another spirit-crushing "winter" for many Texans. Too bad there's no such thing as karma in the weather world because we're owed a Day After Tomorrow type winter.

If you do a 500mb reanalysis it wasn't a horrible pattern, quite decent. But two things went against us and the biggest was the EPO. There was little to no surface cold to be found in our source region. Major red flag was very wet across the Pac NW and British Columbia, this is a common feature when the Aleutian low is so strong it forces to the Pacific jet up there and while we don't make much of it, Pacific air is constantly mixing with any cold that tries to build in NW Canada. Our venerable wxman57 kept telling us flow was coming from the Pacific. Of course the second obvious one was that any meaningful cold during anomalous -AO was directed Southeast by the PNA.

The atmosphere doesn't have a memory though, it doesn't rubber-band because it went one way it just reacts to whatever players are on the field. I like to take this approach for hurricanes as well otherwise the US should've been hit by a major and florida wouldn't have avoided a landfall for 10 years!

We have to use this and rethink how El Nino's work. 2009-2010 influenced us to believe that Nino=good winter. That year as time goes by is proving to be a freak anomaly more than anything. Since 1990, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2006, 2014 (2014 was saved by last minute snow) were mostly dud and milder winters for El Nino. 2002, 2009 are the two colder ones. The sweet spot is 1-1.5C. Lower or higher and it's risky.

[wxman57]

I still see signs of a pattern change in about 11-12 days (in the GFS). This could allow for some colder air to move south down the Plains vs. southeast across the Great Lakes. Of course, this depends on the GFS being somewhat right about the upper-level flow that far out.

[Ntxw]

I still see signs of a pattern change in about 11-12 days (in the GFS). This could allow for some colder air to move south down the Plains vs. southeast across the Great Lakes. Of course, this depends on the GFS being somewhat right about the upper-level flow that far out.

Cold March we've been hollering! But we gave up DJF.

[Brent]

I still see signs of a pattern change in about 11-12 days (in the GFS). This could allow for some colder air to move south down the Plains vs. southeast across the Great Lakes. Of course, this depends on the GFS being somewhat right about the upper-level flow that far out.

Cold March we've been hollering! But we gave up DJF.

I just want a cold wet spring... I'll even take a cool wet spring. It just has to be wet. This winter will just be the unspeakable one.

[Ntxw]

I just want a cold wet spring... I'll even take a cool wet spring. It just has to be wet. This winter will just be the unspeakable one.

You are transforming into a true texan! Once you start missing the rain you know you've made it in Texas. Quite a feat given you came from a generally wet place in Alabama.

[weatherdude1108]

I know this isn't Texas, but you know it's dry if the humidity is 27% (dewpoint of 17 degrees) in NEW ORLEANS. That is one of the most humid places typically, surrounded by water (near the Gulf, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Mississippi River). They're getting a consistent northwest flow. Mardi Gras folks are probably shocking each other.

Current conditions at
New Orleans, New Orleans International Airport (KMSY)
Lat: 30.08°NLon: -89.93°WElev: 3ft.
A Few Clouds
50°F
10°C
Humidity 27%
Wind Speed NW 20 mph
Barometer 30.21 in (1023.2 mb)
Dewpoint 17°F (-8°C)
Visibility 10.00 mi
Wind Chill 44°F (7°C)
Last update 9 Feb 9:53 am CST

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.ph ... roSKvkrJMx

[Brent]

I just want a cold wet spring... I'll even take a cool wet spring. It just has to be wet. This winter will just be the unspeakable one.

You are transforming into a true texan! Once you start missing the rain you know you've made it in Texas. Quite a feat given you came from a generally wet place in Alabama.

I used to laugh when I heard my Texas friends wish for rain... now I've become one.

[wxman57]

12Z GFS is backing off on the cross-Polar flow driving air southward into the Northern Plains around the 23rd-24th. It keeps the current (and past) pattern going. No big surprise that it's changed.

[TeamPlayersBlue]

I think we need to wait for the MJO to swing back around. Right now, its not in our favor. I think like Heatmiser said with the models, it may come in a few weeks. Right now, the GEFS is showing the MJO swinging around deep into phase 7 but the Euro disagrees with this entirely. This will be key. If the MJO swings around to a favorable phase for us, i think we could see another freeze at IAH. If we dont, our odds decrease big time.

Noting the dry air. Im curious as to how much of an anomaly it is. I got 13 degrees for a dewpoint yesterday and this morning. Humidity was down to 18% yesterday. Crazy dry.

[dhweather]

The pattern

AMJ - Floods
JAS - Drought
OND - Floods
DJF - Drought
MAM - ???

With Faux Nino heading downhill, I'm leaning more towards drought.

[South Texas Storms]

The pattern

AMJ - Floods
JAS - Drought
OND - Floods
DJF - Drought
MAM - ???

With Faux Nino heading downhill, I'm leaning more towards drought.

I don't think so. The analogs and long range models are showing a wet spring across the state. That's what our forecast is favoring as well.

[Texas Snowman]

Personally, for this spring, I'm thinking chilly and wet conditions are in order, and maybe, with a little bit of luck, a wild card late season snow in North Texas during the middle to end of March.

Flooding rains again this spring? We'll see. But as Fort Worth NWS noted the other day (and Ntxw also pointed out), this all seems to be following the 1957-58 script almost verbatim. If that continues, Wxman57 could have some miserable bike riding conditions this spring.

[Texas Snowman]

Now to get a bit philosophical (I'm doing that more often these days as the nest empties at home and my father's health seriously declines).

There's little doubt that this winter has been a bust - so far, at least - from what many of us were expecting. Heck, if my memory serves correct, even Wxman57 was thinking cool and wet for this winter (early on, that is), so even his remarkable skills were challenged a bit.

But given the Lone Star State's unique landscape and meteorological makeup, such unexpected conditions are just par for the course if you ask me. What other state features such wild swings in weather from year to year? And what other state can have individual years that can bring hurricanes, tornado outbreaks, torrential flash flooding, intense blizzards, pipe-busting blue Northers, power-line buckling ice storms, dust storms, drought and wildfires, brutal triple-digit heat-waves and lots of weather somewhere in-between?

Such volatile weather is just the nature of living here in this great state given our varied landscape and proximity to mountains, the high plains, arid desert terrain, the Hill Country, deep Pineywoods forestation and the Gulf of Mexico.

It's a wild mix of weather and it spawned the saying "If you don't like the weather in Texas, just stick around 10 minutes, because it's bound to change."

Hopefully, we'll see some of that change back towards cooler, wet weather in the weeks to come.

[Ntxw]

Such volatile weather is just the nature of living here in this great state given our varied landscape and proximity to mountains, the high plains, arid desert terrain, the Hill Country, deep Pineywoods forestation and the Gulf of Mexico.

It's a wild mix of weather and it spawned the saying "If you don't like the weather in Texas, just stick around 10 minutes, because it's bound to change."

Hopefully, we'll see some of that change back towards cooler, wet weather in the weeks to come.

Truer words have never been said. A saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words. And the average rainfall map below speaks for itself. Not just rain but it displays the great variance our state experiences. It is a unique location not just in the United States but ranks up there compared to any place in the world when it comes to extreme variably. There is a reason dry line weather outbreaks exists only in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Aside from mountain influences across the west can any state boast the extremities that Texas experiences? I remember reading a NOAA article ranking the most volatile weather locations in America. The center of it is in Northeast Oklahoma and southwest Missouri and the closer you are to that center the more variable your weather tends to be. What state can boast a forest right next to a desert? Grassland next to a beach?



Some years the yellows push east, some years the greens push west. It can be 15" of rainfall or 60" unlike New Orleans when a drought is 45" vs typical 50-60"

[Tireman4]

12Z GFS is backing off on the cross-Polar flow driving air southward into the Northern Plains around the 23rd-24th. It keeps the current (and past) pattern going. No big surprise that it's changed.

That is it. I am done. Stick a fork in me and call me Darth Spring. It is over. Sigh. The only thing I have to look forward to this Spring Break is revising my dissertation for the UPTEENTH time...Ughhh