Texas Winter 2017-2018

[Texas Snowman]

FYI, Larry Cosgrove outlined some of his thoughts on Facebook yesterday:

“There have been cases in past years of prominent severe weather events in late February, and potential for just such a situation is rising for this weekend. The Storm Prediction Center has outlined a risk area from parts of TX and OK into the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys for Saturday. There seems a likelihood of the system associated with the strong convection affecting the Mid-Atlantic and New England states on Sunday. Note the impressive upper dynamics and fetch of warm, moist and unstable air that may come together ahead of a storm exiting the central Great Plains, headed for Quebec by early February 26.

And lest you think winter is over (and you should not, by any measure....), realize the changes in the upper air pattern that will commence next week and result in a blocked configuration aloft (Rex signature Ungava Peninsula and Davis Strait). Colder air will become re-established in much of the U.S. by March 3. One or two storms ejecting out of the Southwest will likely impact parts of the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard between then and March 12. Both systems may bring the snow line below 40 N Latitude before another transition to warmth gets underway at mid-month.”

[weatherdude1108]

Had a supercharged thunderstorm around midnight last night. Lots of lightning. Power flickered. Heavy rain. Another round this morning moving up from SA into Austin, just in time for rush hour. Up to 1.5 inches and counting this week. 43 degrees.

[opticsguy]

That water vapor image looked like an atmospheric river, only aimed at TX instead of CA.

8.5" of rain in 3 days and more coming. Areas that I've never seen with standing water in 30 years are flooded.

[bubba hotep]

As expected, pretty large area upgraded and the slight extended westward into N. Texas

[Yukon Cornelius]

What a wild week in Weather around here. Ice storm to accumulating sleet, back to an ice storm, then heavy dense fog this morning and now thunderstorms with on and off downpours.

[bubba hotep]

Models have done exceptional well with this event with a pretty long lead time. They started showing the potential for 10 day totals topping 8" across DFW early last week and 6-8" totals are common across DFW this morning with several more chances of rain before we close out the month.

[gboudx]

Over the past 7 days, my hood has received 8.10" so far.

[Haris]

I take the week as a success. My house in W Austin recorded 2.13” of rain. That’s decent . SAN Antonio got 1-3” of rain in the last few days

[CaptinCrunch]

:uarrow: Over the past 7 days, my hood has received 8.10" so far.

I've had a little over 7" at my house. It's been a while since i seen the backyard standing in water....

So far for the month of February thru the 22nd
AVERAGE MONTHLY: 49.7............ TOTAL RAIN FOR MONTH: 4.90
DPTR FM NORMAL: +0.5.............. DPTR FM NORMAL: +2.87

[bubba hotep]

GFS is starting to see some colder air

[wxman57]

The above temperature anomaly graphic translates to upper 30s in the Houston area at day 11, which would be below normal.

(t-24.5 days)

[Ntxw]

Optimistically the stars align first week of March using teleconnections.







Realistically this is our last shot of winter weather probably along and north of I-20. Once past the first week or so of March the odds very low. DFW has seen measurable snow in the last week of March (1937) but extremely rare. hopefully something shows up on models soon

[orangeblood]

Optimistically the stars align first week of March using teleconnections.


Realistically this is our last shot of winter weather probably along and north of I-20. Once past the first week or so of March the odds very low. DFW has seen measurable snow in the last week of March (1937) but extremely rare. hopefully something shows up on models soon

Yep, not looking too great for winter weather around here....Considering what has occurred this year and over the past few years, DFW could now make the claim as "Snowless Capital of the US"

[South Texas Storms]

Only 5 days left until March...that's when spring usually begins around here. Chances look low for a snow event anywhere in the state through the rest of this season.

SA finally got some good storms last night. Airport received over 1 inch this morning. We'll take it!

[wxman57]

Below are the GFS ensembles predictions for highs/lows in the Houston and DFW areas. While I wouldn't rule out any chance of frozen precip in the DFW area the first week or March, I think it's quite a long shot. I still think we (Houston) have seen our last freeze.





(t-24.25)

[CaptinCrunch]

March 20-21, 2010
An unusually strong and cold upper level low slowly moved along the Red River Valley on March 20 and 21. Heavy snowfall occurred on the backside of the low with measurable snowfall occurring mainly to the north of I-20. A very localized and heavy band of snow developed during the early morning hours of the 21st, dumping 5 to 9 inches of snow across Collin County.
Some locations just 20 miles to the southwest of this band of snow only picked up 1 inch. Snow continued into the early afternoon hours on the 21st across East Texas before ending.

March 6-7, 2008
Rain changed over to heavy snow and thundersnow during the late morning hours in areas northwest of the DFW Metroplex. Decatur and Gainesville reported 9 inches of snow with this event.
A stationary rain/snow line resulted in dramatically different snow totals across the Metroplex. Northern Tarrant County had up to 7 inches of snow, DFW recorded only 1.1 inches, and much of the Metroplex saw less than 1 inch. More light snow developed across the eastern Metroplex and into Northeast Texas in the early morning hours of March 7, but amounts were less than 1 inch.

March 3, 2008
An upper level low produced snow for most areas along and north of I-20 where amounts generally ranged from a trace to 3 inches. A localized intense band of heavy snow centere dover Grayson County produced as much as 6 inches of snow. DFW recorded 1 inch.

April 7-8, 2007
Snow fell in areas south of I-20 during the daytime hours of the Saturday before Easter. The highest amounts of 3 to5 inches were found in a band from Comanche and Goldthwaite to Waco and Temple/Killeen. Bluebonnets were already in bloom when this snow fell, making for unique pictures of this event.

March 27, 2005
An upper level low produced a very localized narrow band of 1-2 inches of snow from Graham to Weatherford to Benbrook to Cleburne in the predawn hours of Easter morning. Most areas outside the snow band saw only moderate to heavy rain.

[wxman57]

Yep, it's hard to be extremely confident that NE TX won't see any further winter weather, being that it's only the last days of February. The pattern could always change by mid-March. Most of those events above are the result of an upper-low moving acros NE TX. We haven't had that type of pattern in quite a while this winter.

(t-24.25)

[orangeblood]

To convey just how bad the snow drought at DFW has become over the past 3 years....Over the last 3 years, DFW has recorded 0.1 inch measurable snowfall - with around 2 inches per year of average snowfall, that comes out to 1.67% of normal 3 yr snowfall.

According to my research: there isn't a place in the US and even every location outside the US I've looked at, averaging greater than 1 inch per year, that has received less of a % of normal snowfall than DFW. And I don't even think there's a close 2nd

[Yukon Cornelius]

Temps hanging around in the mid 30s today with on and off heavy rain. The roads are all clear up this way, as of this morning but all of the grass and roofs are still covered in sleet.

[Ntxw]

To convey just how bad the snow drought at DFW has become over the past 3 years....Over the last 3 years, DFW has recorded 0.1 inch measurable snowfall - with around 2 inches per year of average snowfall, that comes out to 1.67% of normal 3 yr snowfall.

According to my research: there isn't a place in the US and even every location outside the US I've looked at, averaging greater than 1 inch per year, that has received less of a % of normal snowfall than DFW. And I don't even think there's a close 2nd

We better get used to it. The 1980s climo will be lost in 2020 (1991-2020 is new dataset). 1990s, 2000s were unkind. The average will fall further. It dropped quite a bit when the 1970s were lost in the 2010 new climo set. The climate at DFW has changed. Average temps will rise as well in the new subset.