December: Warm Days & Cool-Foggy Nights To End 2011

[biggerbyte]

Ads are starting to pop up when I enter this forum now.

Not cool, Belo.

[wxman57]

Ads are starting to pop up when I enter this forum now.

Not cool, Belo.

I don't see any ads, but I have Adblock Plus installed as a FireFox add-on:
http://adblockplus.org/en/

[JackCruz]

Frost was so thick on the lawn and the fields this morning it almost looked like snow.

I was just about to post the exact same thing. It was beautiful this morning...in terms or temps and frost

[JackCruz]

The GFS showed some winter mischief in and around Houston around the 16th-19th of December, about 3-4 days ago...it disappeared for a few days...and now the GFS is showing winter mischief again, but just to the west of Houston....it'll probably change seeing it's really far out....but happy to see the GFS is showing it again...

How is it looking for the week late next week?

[Ptarmigan]

A portion of Harris County and Texas has improved from Exceptional to Extreme Drought. We have a long way to go.

[Rich]

I know it will probably disappear but has anyone noticed the 18z GFS?!?

http://www.twisterdata.com/index.php?pr ... hive=false

[srainhoutx]

I know it will probably disappear but has anyone noticed the 18z GFS?!?

http://www.twisterdata.com/index.php?pr ... hive=false

Saved that image for you, Rich. It's still a long way out but guidance is suggesting an active pattern with a trough to our W and disturbances riding S near California as well as a noisy sub tropical jet. We'll see what things look like early next week regarding this push of colder air.

[Belmer]

I know it will probably disappear but has anyone noticed the 18z GFS?!?

http://www.twisterdata.com/index.php?pr ... hive=false

Saved that image for you, Rich. It's still a long way out but guidance is suggesting an active pattern with a trough to our W and disturbances riding S near California as well as a noisy sub tropical jet. We'll see what things look like early next week regarding this push of colder air.

Wouldn't that just be absolutely amazing if that actually came about? That's just 10 days out. (hahaha)

[Rich]

I know it will probably disappear but has anyone noticed the 18z GFS?!?

http://www.twisterdata.com/index.php?pr ... hive=false

Saved that image for you, Rich. It's still a long way out but guidance is suggesting an active pattern with a trough to our W and disturbances riding S near California as well as a noisy sub tropical jet. We'll see what things look like early next week regarding this push of colder air.

Thanks for posting the image on here Srain! I always forget how to post images on here. It will be interesting to see if any trends form coming into next week.

[helloitsb]

I know! I saw the 18 raw data and felt like a little kid. GFS la la land as Srain would say

[JackCruz]

[Andrew]

Remember we are looking at the low resolution GFS. What the low resolution GFS often does is leave too much moisture behind the actual trough. I see nothing in the long range GFS to have that much moisture leftover from the front. Hopefully once we get into the shorter range and the higher resolution portion of the GFS we will have a better idea of what will happen.

[singlemom]

Ads are starting to pop up when I enter this forum now.

Not cool, Belo.

Yup, I've been hating that....a lot!!! So, I found the main provider (Undertone) and found their Opt Out page.

http://www.undertone.com/privacy/opt-out-status.php

I *really* hope Belo doesn't keep this up.

[Ptarmigan]

I know it will probably disappear but has anyone noticed the 18z GFS?!?

http://www.twisterdata.com/index.php?pr ... hive=false

Saved that image for you, Rich. It's still a long way out but guidance is suggesting an active pattern with a trough to our W and disturbances riding S near California as well as a noisy sub tropical jet. We'll see what things look like early next week regarding this push of colder air.

We can wish for snow and White Christmas.

[srainhoutx]

The cold front is progressing through Oklahoma back into N Central Texas this morning. Temps are running almost 20-30 degrees warmer than yesterday across the area. Clouds associated with a light onshore flow and a noisy sub tropical jet will likely lead to a big temp differential across the area with highs in the. mid 50's N and 60's closer to the Coast. The 'cold' front should arrive during the afternoon hours turning our surface winds to the NNE, but clouds will linger with a couple of embedded short waves to our SW and W. Light rain/drizzle may occur to our SW as moisture pools near Matagorda Bay, but the rest of the area should remain dry. Clouds look to lift out during the day on Sunday as a weak high pressure ridge shifts E and a warm up begins. As of now it appears a pesky cut off low and trough will settled into California and weak upper air energy/disturbances will eject NE mid week. A Pacific front looks to stall to our N along or just S of the Red River Valley and linger as the upper air pattern elongates from the Desert SW to the NE and high pressure builds across the Gulf and SE US. The next push of 'colder' air doesn't look likely until perhaps sometime near next weekend as the upper pattern remains zonal and all the main weather 'drivers' remain well to our N across the Northern Plains and the Hudson Bay Vortex relaxes. With all that said, there still remains some uncertainty with how things will play out as a Coastal trough/low could form to our SW this weekend and there is still no agreement with just how strong or where the Upper Air features to our W will eject E as well as track. The GFS suggests a more southerly track while the Euro would take these features NE into the Central Plains. We'll see how all this evolves over the next couple of days.

[srainhoutx]

Morning e-mail from Jeff:

Clouds have returned to the area overnight with 600am temperatures running 15-25 degrees warmer this morning than yesterday due to clouds and weak onshore winds. Temperatures range from the low 40’s north to near 60 on the beaches. Radar shows a few patches of very light rain/drizzle along the coastal counties from Matagorda Bay to Bolivar this morning with clouds increasing elsewhere.

Cold front over NW TX into OK will progress southward today and will combine with an incoming short wave over the Big Bend region and returning moisture to produce a chance of light rainfall and drizzle over mainly the coastal and southwestern counties. Liked the look of the 00Z WRF model suggesting scattered areas of light rain/drizzle from late this morning to late afternoon from Houston southwest toward Matagorda Bay and then southward into deep south TX. Most of this rainfall will be extremely light with accumulations of a trace to less than .10 of an inch.

Cold front will push offshore this evening with northerly low level flow ushering in a drier low level air mass. Weak ridging over the state on Saturday will help erode the cloud deck toward the southwest, and most of the area should see sun on Saturday with cool temperatures. Pesky cloud deck being enhanced by a lower TX/NE MX coastal trough will be lurking just to our SW on Saturday and areas around Matagorda Bay may be more cloudy than sunny. Active sub-tropical jet carving across TX will help lift the cloud deck back northward on Sunday as the lower TX coastal trough becomes more defined. Latest models have this trough a little further southward (south of KBRO) and so most of the widespread rain and drizzle will be focused over deep south TX into the Rio Grande plains and southern coastal bend Sun-Mon. SE TX will lie on the northern fringe with a battle between returning moisture to the SW and dry ENE flow backing in from the E. Best rain chances (20-30%) will be focused over our SW and W counties with better chances south and west of those areas. A few impulses in the sub-tropical jet may enhance rain chances at some point in the Sun-Tue period, but when is questionable as such disturbances are hard to forecast this far out in time.

Next actual storm system to affect the region may be on course for the Wed-Fri period of next week with gradually warming temperatures and moisture levels in the Mon-Wed time frame. Not overly impressed with the depth of the next storm system nor its ability to bring rainfall or decent cooling. Will go with a warming trend starting Sun with highs returning to the 70’s by Wed and lows rising from the 30’s over the weekend into the 40’s/50’s Monday and 50’s/60’s Tue-Wed. 20-30% rain chances will be maintained nearly all next week with the active sub-tropical jet overhead. CMC model is slightly more aggressive with rain chances and QPF than the GFS, but backing dry air to the east and ongoing exceptional drought leads me toward the drier GFS theme.

[djmike]

Ahh man...sounds like a mighty slow, non-exciting and warm next 7 days...

[srainhoutx]

Everything hinges on what happens out W with the cut off low. We saw what happened last week with a strong upper air disturbance that lingered longer than expected...note the convection/disturbance over the Eastern Pacific...



HPC Morning Update

PRELIMINARY EXTENDED FORECAST DISCUSSION
NWS HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD
858 AM EST FRI DEC 09 2011

VALID 12Z TUE DEC 13 2011 - 12Z FRI DEC 16 2011

THE PREEPD UPDATE STAYED WITH MOST OF THE REASONING OF THE EARLY
PRELIM. HOWEVER...DAYS 3-7...WE INCREASED THE PERCENTAGE OF
DETERMINISTIC ECMWF TO 70% IN THE UPDATE BLEND. THE REMAINING 30%
OF OUR BLEND WAS THE NEW 00Z ECENS MEAN. THE 00Z/09 ECMWF WAS
QUITE WELL DEVELOPED WITH A DAY 6 THU CA SYS SYS ITS PAST TWO
RUNS. WE ARE STAYING ON THE MORE AMPLIFIED/FARTHER W SIDE OF THE
00Z SPAGHETTI PLOT ENVELOPE SINCE THAT SOLUTION IS FAVORED BY
DECENT MODEL CONSENSUS ON A SHARP SUPPORTING RIDGE UPSTREAM. THIS
AFFECTS MAINLY 500MB ALTHOUGH WE MAY NEED TO DEPICT A MORE
ENERGETIC SURFACE LOW NEAR SRN CA IN THE FINAL AFTERNOON UPDATE.
THE EARLY PRELIM DISCUSSION FOLLOWS BELOW.


A DEEPENING UPPER LOW IN THE BERING SEA WILL FORCE DOWNSTREAM
RIDGING OVER THE NORTHEASTERN PACIFIC INTO WESTERN CANADA AT THE
START OF THE MEDIUM RANGE PERIOD. THIS WILL AID IN SPLIT FLOW OVER
MUCH OF THE CONUS WITH A CLOSED LOW MOVING OUT OF THE SOUTHWESTERN
STATES. THE TYPICAL LA NINA RIDGE WILL ONCE AGAIN REASSERT ITSELF
OVER THE GULF WITH THE TROUGH PROGRESSING INTO THE GREAT LAKES.
THE MODELS GENERALLY AGREE ON THIS IDEA BUT THE 00Z UKMET/CANADIAN
ARE QUICKER TO BRING THE CLOSED LOW OUT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
EARLY IN THE WEEK COMPARED TO THE 00Z GFS/ECMWF/GEFS MEAN... WHICH
WAS THE PREFERRED CLUSTER COMING OUT OF THE SHORT RANGE. FOLLOWED
THE 00Z ECMWF FOR MANY OF THE DETAILS OF THE FORECAST AS THE GFS
SHOWED A MUCH MORE PROGRESSIVE SHORTWAVE PUSHING THROUGH BRITISH
COLUMBIA TUE-WED THAN THE ECMWF... WHICH CLOSES OFF THE SYSTEM TO
THE SOUTH. INCORPORATED MORE OF THE 12Z/08 ECMWF ENSEMBLE MEAN TO
TAME DOWN THE AMPLIFIED OPERATIONAL ECMWF DAYS 5-7 GIVEN FADING
CONFIDENCE. HOWEVER... REBUILDING OF A POSITIVELY TILTED RIDGE
OVER THE NORTHEAST PACIFIC BY THE END OF NEXT WEEK MAY VERY WELL
IMPLY YET ANOTHER CUTOFF LOW OVER CALIFORNIA.

[srainhoutx]

Looking ahead to next weekend, guidance is suggesting a bit of colder air with a strong cold front making it's way S a week from today (12-16)...for what it's worth...

[srainhoutx]

Jorge made reference to this on a different weather forum, which got me all nostalgic about Houston snow miracles. 4 snow miracles in 7 years would do a lot to ease the disappointment the drought has caused.

A 'little birdie' hinted to me that our friends at Impact Weather are thinking some winter mischief could be ahead as we go deeper into December into January. We will see...