January Weather Discussion: Slight Chance Severe Storms

[biggerbyte]

It's all good. Andrew is right about the emotionless internet. That's why we have indicators to show what our face can not. Some folks just don't use them.

[Andrew]

One thing I wanted to mention again that Srain has been talking about (and I pmed him about) is how the models are having difficulties with this setup. Many of the extra data and recon is because the GFS and others are having problems. For example I talked to him about the higher pressures in Canada that is not showing up on the GFS. This along with temps have been a problem lately for these models and is going to influence the models for the longer range. Keep that in mind when looking at the models. First look how well they initialize before putting tooo much trust in them.

[redneckweather]

Yes, I know srain was being sarcastic but in REALITY their is nothing what I call EXCITING come next week or the week after. Northwestern Canada is mighty cold but that is NOT coming straight south. Most of it is going east giving us another glancing blow which is the norm down here. What we will get is normal January cold dreary weather which will keep you inside, like today. IMO, January is the worse month out of the year and more times than not, down right sucks weather wise. Today was a typical January day. Did any of y'all really enjoy it? February sucks almost as much but not as bad because you know the changing of the seasons is just around the corner.

[Andrew]

Yes, I know srain was being sarcastic but in REALITY their is nothing what I call EXCITING come next week or the week after. Northwestern Canada is mighty cold but that is NOT coming straight south. Most of it is going east giving us another glancing blow which is the norm down here. What we will get is normal January cold dreary weather which will keep you inside, like today. IMO, January is the worse month out of the year and more times than not, down right sucks weather wise. Today was a typical January day. Did any of y'all really enjoy it? February sucks almost as much but not as bad because you know the changing of the seasons is just around the corner.

A lot of the models that I have seen (that have good data) show the cold coming a lot farther south before east. In fact it goes to far south before going east and actually goes to the west of us. so...

[C2G]

What I miss, what's going on?
Warm up on the way yet, or more dreary cold and cloudy?
There's a reason depression runs rampant during the winter.

[cisa]

Ok, I haven't been on in a few days. Can someone catch me up? Cold yes? Rain yes? Any chance of anything more fun?

[Andrew]

Ok, I haven't been on in a few days. Can someone catch me up? Cold yes? Rain yes? Any chance of anything more fun?

Too early to tell. With the shallowness of this feature along with the poor initialization from some of the models it is still too early to tell. But from what we can tell right now, the freezing rain/sleet will stay up north around Dallas or so.

[redneckweather]

Cloud2ground said: Warm up on the way yet, or more dreary cold and cloudy?
There's a reason depression runs rampant during the winter.

Yea, no kidding. The weather forced me to stay inside and I hate being inside. Not in the best of moods today.

Sunshine would be nice right about now.

[sleetstorm]

What are we missing for freezing rain, sleet, and snow to fall here in southeast Texas, an upper level low or a trough, Andrew?

[Andrew]

What are we missing for freezing rain, sleet, and snow to fall here in southeast Texas, an upper level low or a trough, Andrew?

Well some of the models such as the Euro and Canadian have been hinting at a disturbance tracking across Texas next week but farther to the north and before the cold air gets here. What we will need is for the cold air to get here faster and some sort of disturbance to track farther to the south.

[cisa]

Ok, I haven't been on in a few days. Can someone catch me up? Cold yes? Rain yes? Any chance of anything more fun?

Too early to tell. With the shallowness of this feature along with the poor initialization from some of the models it is still too early to tell. But from what we can tell right now, the freezing rain/sleet will stay up north around Dallas or so.

Thanks Andrew. I was kinda hoping if I did't look for a few days, something fun would sneek up on me.

[sleetstorm]

Yes, I know srain was being sarcastic but in REALITY their is nothing what I call EXCITING come next week or the week after. Northwestern Canada is mighty cold but that is NOT coming straight south. Most of it is going east giving us another glancing blow which is the norm down here. What we will get is normal January cold dreary weather which will keep you inside, like today. IMO, January is the worse month out of the year and more times than not, down right sucks weather wise. Today was a typical January day. Did any of y'all really enjoy it? February sucks almost as much but not as bad because you know the changing of the seasons is just around the corner.

A lot of the models that I have seen (that have good data) show the cold coming a lot farther south before east. In fact it goes to far south before going east and actually goes to the west of us. so...

How much farther south do most of the models depict the cold air coming, Andrew?

[Andrew]

Ok, I haven't been on in a few days. Can someone catch me up? Cold yes? Rain yes? Any chance of anything more fun?

Too early to tell. With the shallowness of this feature along with the poor initialization from some of the models it is still too early to tell. But from what we can tell right now, the freezing rain/sleet will stay up north around Dallas or so.

Thanks Andrew. I was kinda hoping if I did't look for a few days, something fun would sneek up on me.

You never know. Like wxman has been saying models deal with these shallow artic fronts poorly. It could get here sooner than we think.

[Andrew]

Yes, I know srain was being sarcastic but in REALITY their is nothing what I call EXCITING come next week or the week after. Northwestern Canada is mighty cold but that is NOT coming straight south. Most of it is going east giving us another glancing blow which is the norm down here. What we will get is normal January cold dreary weather which will keep you inside, like today. IMO, January is the worse month out of the year and more times than not, down right sucks weather wise. Today was a typical January day. Did any of y'all really enjoy it? February sucks almost as much but not as bad because you know the changing of the seasons is just around the corner.

A lot of the models that I have seen (that have good data) show the cold coming a lot farther south before east. In fact it goes to far south before going east and actually goes to the west of us. so...

How much farther south do most of the models depict the cold air coming, Andrew?

Well both the Euro and Canadian have shown it going pretty far south having the 0 isotherm line getting close here. GFS on the other hand has the cold 0z line going west of us but farther south. 00z are coming in so look to those runs for clues.

Edit: see what I mean

[sleetstorm]

What are we missing for freezing rain, sleet, and snow to fall here in southeast Texas, an upper level low or a trough, Andrew?

Well some of the models such as the Euro and Canadian have been hinting at a disturbance tracking across Texas next week but farther to the north and before the cold air gets here. What we will need is for the cold air to get here faster and some sort of disturbance to track farther to the south.

Okay, thank you, Andrew. That would make sense.

[sleetstorm]

Yes, I see what you mean, Andrew. Precipitation is exiting Texas just the icy air settles in.

[Andrew]

[Baseballdude2915]

CMC brings very, very cold air for us. Wow.
GFS is still sluggish, undercuts the air by some bit.
EURO doesn't really show much in the way of bitter cold, just cold.

WHO TO BELIEVE?

[srainhoutx]

And unfortunately in the pattern ahead, cold and dreary may well be what we see. A little better agreement this morning via the Opertaional models, but still a bit of a spread within the ensembles and those operational models. The HPC spells out the differences and suggests the Euro is the best fit, for now...

PRELIMINARY EXTENDED FORECAST DISCUSSION
NWS HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD
801 AM EST MON JAN 17 2011

VALID 12Z FRI JAN 21 2011 - 12Z MON JAN 24 2011

EXPECT A LARGE SCALE MEAN TROF TO PERSIST OVER THE ERN HALF OF
CANADA INTO THE ERN HALF TO 2/3 OF THE CONUS FOR MOST OF THE
PERIOD. THERE ARE INDICATIONS THAT THE RIDGE OVER THE ERN PAC
WILL TRY TO BUILD INTO THE NWRN CONUS/WRN CANADA BY EARLY NEXT
WEEK. DIFFS STILL EXIST WITH DETAILS AMONG LATEST MODEL/ENSEMBLE
SOLNS AND CONSECUTIVE RUNS OF INDIVIDUAL MODELS BUT AS A WHOLE
AGREEMENT APPEARS TO HAVE IMPROVED COMPARED TO RECENT DAYS.

DAYS 3-5 THU-SAT MAINTAIN A SOLN SIMILAR TO THE 00Z ECMWF. AS OF
EARLY DAY 3 THU THERE ARE TIMING DIFFS WITH THE COLD FRONT SURGING
THRU THE SRN PLAINS WITH THE 00Z/06Z GFS SLOWER THAN ECMWF-BASED
GUIDANCE. NEITHER SCENARIO IS AN OUTLIER COMPARED TO THE FULL
SOLN SPREAD. GIVEN THAT SUCH SURGES CAN SOMETIMES BE FCST A
LITTLE TOO SLOW... THE FASTER PORTION OF THE ENVELOPE SEEMS
REASONABLE. BY DAY 4 FRI THERE IS A MODERATE AMOUNT OF SPREAD
REGARDING POSSIBLE SFC DEVELOPMENT NEAR THE EAST COAST. THE 00Z
CANADIAN IS A DEEP/WWD EXTREME COMPARED TO OTHER MODEL/ENSEMBLE
SOLNS AND THE 06Z GFS IS RATHER FAR WWD AS WELL. THE 00Z GEFS
MEAN IS A SLOWER AND SLIGHTLY WEAKER VERSION OF THE 00Z ECMWF. ON
THE OTHER HAND THE UKMET AND CANADIAN/ECMWF ENSEMBLE MEANS SHOW
LESS DEVELOPMENT THAN THE 00Z ECMWF... LEAVING THE 00Z ECMWF AS A
GOOD INTERMEDIATE SOLN AT THIS TIME. BY DAY 5 SAT THE MAIN
FEATURE OF NOTE IS A WAVE REACHING THE PLAINS OR MS VALLEY. A
FASTER TREND OF THE 06Z GFS VERSUS THE 00Z GFS/GEFS MEAN ADD
SUPPORT TO THE 00Z ECMWF SCENARIO BUT THERE REMAINS ENOUGH
TIMING/DETAIL SPREAD TO KEEP CONFIDENCE MEDIUM TO LOW. FARTHER
WWD THE 00Z ECMWF IS ONE OF THE STRONGER SOLNS WITH A SHRTWV
REACHING THE NWRN CONUS BY EARLY SAT. THIS FEATURE IS FARTHER NWD
IN THE 00Z CMC AND HINTED AT IN WEAKER FORM BY ECMWF ENSEMBLES AND
THE UKMET. WILL AWAIT 12Z GUIDANCE FOR ANY CONFIDENT ADJUSTMENTS
TO THE ECMWF HANDLING OF THIS FEATURE IN LIGHT OF ECMWF PREFERENCE
ELSEWHERE.

DAYS 6-7 SUN-MON INCORPORATE 50-60 PCT OF THE 00Z ECMWF ENSEMBLE
MEAN WITH THE 00Z ECMWF AS CONFIDENCE DECREASES IN THE SPECIFICS
OF THE OPERATIONAL RUN. THE 00Z ECMWF IS WITHIN THE FULL SOLN
SPREAD OVER THE WEST/PLAINS BUT CURRENT MODEL/ENSEMBLE DIFFS AND
ECMWF RUN TO RUN CONTINUITY CHANGES REQUIRE A BLENDED APPROACH TO
ACCOUNT FOR UNCERTAINTY. MEANWHILE ENSEMBLE SUPPORT IS LACKING
FOR THE 00Z ECMWF IDEA OF A WELL DEFINED SFC LOW BEING LOCATED OFF
THE NEW ENGLAND COAST AS OF EARLY DAY 7 MON... AS GUIDANCE
CONSENSUS SHOWS BROADER FLOW ALOFT THAN FCST BY THE 00Z ECMWF.
THE PREFERRED BLEND STILL YIELDS A WEAK WAVE BUT IS MUCH CLOSER TO
THE MIDDLE OF THE FULL ARRAY OF GUIDANCE.

RAUSCH/CISCO

01172011 00Z Euro Ensembles 850 Temps 00zECMWFENS6-10day850mbTempAnomalyNA.gif

01172011 00Z GEFS Ensembles 850 Temps 00zENS6-10day500mbHeightAnomalyNA.gif

[wxman57]

I’d say the GFS has swung over to the Euro camp as far as Thursday’s weather pattern. GFS is now showing the trof in the southwest approaching as the Arctic air slips southward through OK into TX. Take note of what the GFS is doing in the TX Panhandle. It develops a low there and tries to drive the Arctic air back north as a warm front through OK on Wednesday evening. That’s a common GFS mistake with a shallow Arctic airmass. It’s possible that the Arctic air could be well south of the Red River, perhaps even in SE TX by Wednesday evening. That could mean a large are of freezing rain/sleet to our north from the TX Hill Country through Dallas/Ft. Worth to southern OK, with snow in northern OK.

Comparing the Euro 72, 96 and 120 hrs, I see little difference between it and the 00Z GFS. Neither brings the 850mb 0C line anywhere near us, indicating a shallow layer of cold air. I also made a meteogram for Houston from the 00Z GFS. A low temp near 32 next Saturday is the coldest indicated through next Monday.

What I see as a greater threat is a central to NE TX to southern or central OK freezing rain event on Thursday. Probably east to Arkansas, too. The BIG question is just what kind of airmass will move south out of Canada? Temps in NW Canada are a good 20-40 degrees colder than they were prior to last week’s front. For us? Nothing too interesting. More cold rain Thursday. I see nothing to indicate otherwise.