Texas Winter 2019-2020

[TheProfessor]

It was the first to sniff this one out though (almost 2-3 days before Euro)....yes it appears to have a somewhat cold bias but was only off by 50-100 miles from almost a week out, impressive in my book!!! Inside of 120 hrs, go with the Euro...outside of that, I've preferred the GFS for pattern recognition

this always amazes me about people in general (not singling out anyone) when it comes to weather predictions. the storm travels thousands of miles and people like to call it a bust when it misses the location by 50 miles in the end. getting it within 50 miles over the course of thousands of miles is pretty damn accurate. same thing when it's raining at 33 degrees and they call it a bust when there is no frozen precip. to use a football analogy, it's like equating going 3 and out with driving 80 yards and getting stopped on the 1 yard line just because the result was no TD.

I get it... but it had how many runs with Dallas getting significant snow for 3 or 4 days straight. I get that WF Isnt that far away and its not a large error but from an IMBY perspective it sucks.

Meanwhile the Euro always showed rain in Dallas and never waivered and that's the likely scenario

Both the GFS and Euro were on opposite sides of the forecast. The Euro having the snow axis up near Lubbock, the GFS near and some times east of DFW. They both trended towards each other and met in the middle. There were a quite a few people here who thought that'd happen. This was pure model bias showing up until the time frame got closer and eventually the models found a middle ground. I wouldn't call this a win or loss for either models, they were just kind of doing what they're supposed to do. At least we didn't have a model go rogue(like the UkMet did during Barry lol).

[AubreyStorm]

12:30 pm forecast update: A winter storm warning is now in effect for western areas of North Texas. The rest of the watch has transitioned to a winter advisory. The main forecast change is we are expecting more sleet and less snow, but travel impacts still likely! #dfwwx #ctxwx

[orangeblood]

Speaking of the Euro, anyone think DFW is getting into the mid 50's this afternoon ? That's the forecast it just put out there...watch the dew points, they might be way too high later tonight

[Ralph's Weather]

Front placement is closest to the NAM right now. Temps are running a bit colder than all models show right now. Though I know this event is going to be determined based on the placement of the mid level fronts. Along and just behind the 700mb front is where the heavy sleet and snow will be. Between the 700mb and the 85mb fron to its east will be primarily sleet and ahead of the 850mb front it will be all liquid though maybe freezing rain depending on surface temps and especially the dew point.

[DFW Stormwatcher]

12:30 pm forecast update: A winter storm warning is now in effect for western areas of North Texas. The rest of the watch has transitioned to a winter advisory. The main forecast change is we are expecting more sleet and less snow, but travel impacts still likely! #dfwwx #ctxwx

Aubrey,

It does appear that myself(alliance area), you and rwkansas may get in on some of this going purely by the weather advisory. Hard to be comfortable with freeze line 10 miles as the crow flies to the East, the good thing is that I’m apparently 20 miles east of heavy snow so the break could go either way. Hopefully everyone ends up getting some of this. Winter weather advisories from Brownwood to Fort Worth to Sherman and west. I don’t remember a setup like that happening before in DFW, but I recently moved from Frisco so Fort Worth snow didn’t count

Other than heat island I don’t see why there would be a quick shut off point for winter weather. Btw, elevation is frequently brought up concerning northwest dfw winter weather. I’m sitting at 800 ft elevation here in Keller, frisco was generally around 600 ft and Decatur is at 1000 ft, That’s a total differential of 400 ft. That’s very little elevation for temp differential for icing. So is it more heat island impacts as opposed to elevation?

[Cerlin]

It was supposed to already be to 50 right now in Carrollton but the temperature hasn’t rebounded past 45 yet

[wxman57]

I'm waiting patiently to see what the Euro says for SE Tx.

The Euro says "maybe next winter" for us. It's a little farther west/northwest with the snow line west of the D-FW Metroplex.

[Ralph's Weather]

Speaking of the Euro, anyone think DFW is getting into the mid 50's this afternoon ? That's the forecast it just put out there...watch the dew points, they might be way too high later tonight

Yea, I would not expect any real rise in temps. BTW WTH is up with the front placement on the Canadian all of the other models are at least close. Front is about to hit me in Tyler and the Canadian has it in SE Dallas Co.

[Cpv17]

GFS back to another arctic plunge towards the end of the run.

The Euro has it too although not as strong as the GFS.

[wxman57]

Taking a look at the 12Z GFS forecast soundings for Dallas, it was forecasting a surface temp of 54 at 18Z, so it was too slow with the cold air arrival. Forecast for 18Z tomorrow (noon) still has that warm nose aloft, indicating cold rain. By 00Z tomorrow (6pm), the warm nose disappears right about the time the precip ends. In general, the models were too slow with the frontal passage, but look upstream behind the front. The air isn't particularly cold in Childress or SW Oklahoma (above freezing).

[Ralph's Weather]

The effect of precip on temperature is shown by looking at temps under the precip shield in the Panhandle it is 23 where models had it at 25-29. I am sure some of that is from cooling as the surface air moistens up and some is from the precip bringing down colder air.

Side note, the Euro shows the mid 90s right now in S TX where in reality it is only 80. Other models showed low to mid 80s. Not that this means anything but still interesting.

[Texas Snow]

Other than heat island I don’t see why there would be a quick shut off point for winter weather. Btw, elevation is frequently brought up concerning northwest dfw winter weather. I’m sitting at 800 ft elevation here in Keller, frisco was generally around 600 ft and Decatur is at 1000 ft, That’s a total differential of 400 ft. That’s very little elevation for temp differential for icing. So is it more heat island impacts as opposed to elevation?

That can be worth 2 degrees F so in an event like this where 1-2 degrees matter it could make the difference. When there is strong cold air advection the heat island effect is minimized, unlike cold clear nights with no wind where the countryside can be a good 10 degrees colder.

[rwfromkansas]

iWeathernet says no ice/snow in DFW at all. I trust him a lot since he has been right a lot. I hope he busts this time.

[DFW Stormwatcher]

Other than heat island I don’t see why there would be a quick shut off point for winter weather. Btw, elevation is frequently brought up concerning northwest dfw winter weather. I’m sitting at 800 ft elevation here in Keller, frisco was generally around 600 ft and Decatur is at 1000 ft, That’s a total differential of 400 ft. That’s very little elevation for temp differential for icing. So is it more heat island impacts as opposed to elevation?

That can be worth 2 degrees F so in an event like this where 1-2 degrees matter it could make the difference. When there is strong cold air advection the heat island effect is minimized, unlike cold clear nights with no wind where the countryside can be a good 10 degrees colder.

Thank You Texas Snow, that is an assumption I’ve always made. Admittedly, not a terribly informed assumption. Learned so much on this forum. Great asset to have in these situations.

[weatherdude1108]

Ah well, it was fun while the hype lasted.


Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio TX
1239 PM CST Tue Feb 4 2020

.UPDATE.../UPDATED FRONTAL TIMING & TEMP TRENDS/
Forecast was updated as a first guess for the afternoon package as
the temperature trends for the first several hours behind shallow
cold front needed to be addressed. No new messaging points need to be
made at this time as the new model data indicates a similar scenario
in regards to our precipitation timing and precip types. All of the
new model data indicates some growing confidence that the wintry mix
over our counties north of Hwy 90 are unlikely to produce any
significant travel impacts. The temperature trends show a decreasing
likelihood of freezing conditions over our northern counties until
around 12Z or 13Z. 2nd and 3rd period QPF trends are also drier. The
afternoon update will probably indicate no ice accumulations of any
kind for both nights.

[dhweather]

Speaking of the Euro, anyone think DFW is getting into the mid 50's this afternoon ? That's the forecast it just put out there...watch the dew points, they might be way too high later tonight

"The euro is by far superior and does not make mistakes like the grossly inferior GFS. Therefore this is not possible." - ECMWF fans

[orangeblood]

Speaking of the Euro, anyone think DFW is getting into the mid 50's this afternoon ? That's the forecast it just put out there...watch the dew points, they might be way too high later tonight

"The euro is by far superior and does not make mistakes like the grossly inferior GFS. Therefore this is not possible." - ECMWF fans

nothing like a 12-14 Deg F temp bust from 9 hrs out to make you crowned "The King". The flaws in some of these models are truly astounding!!

[Ralph's Weather]

HRRR in with the big SE shift. It has a much less substantial warm nose tomorrow for DFW compared to other models and especially to the NAM.

[wxman57]

HRRR in with the big SE shift. It has a much less substantial warm nose tomorrow for DFW compared to other models and especially to the NAM.

I see a little bit less of a warm nose aloft, with mid to upper 30s on the surface around noon tomorrow. Maybe some sleet pellets or perhaps a snowflake as the precip ends tomorrow afternoon. Not very promising, and no above-surface cold pool associated with the passage of an upper-level low this time.

[Cerlin]

HRRR in with the big SE shift. It has a much less substantial warm nose tomorrow for DFW compared to other models and especially to the NAM.

I think this is largely due to the swiftness of the frontal passage and the slight temperature bust, of which the HRRR is just now starting to pick up on