February: Clear Skies & Moderating Temps To End The Month

[weatherguy425]

Here's to hoping MORE of Texas gets in on the action. Tired of sub-zero dewpoints up here in the 'frozen tundra'!

[Mr. T]

HERES TO nother month of negativity and model hugging

Did you accidentally put an "s" in the middle of your last name?

[weatherguy425]

And, as Srainhoutx mentioned, the indices, as well as various runs and ensembles of the Global models indicate hat an active pattern will continue across the inter-mountain west, southern plains, and deep south through the next couple of weeks.

PNA is trending neutral and should go negative over the next week - lots of troughing out west....

PNA.png

EPO values are negative, and should continue to dive. Models have struggled with extended-range EPO/WPO value forecasts, so take the + values with a grain of salt at this point.

EPO.png

AND, the WPO (EPO's best friend) is also negative.

wpo.png

Sound familiar? Similar to late November & early December weather setups. Speaking from a north Texas stand-point, I could use a good winter storm, or moisture in any for for that matter!

[Mr. T]

yes i did. but its too late to fix that now Tyler. ahhh i remember the good old days. i remember your fights with hardcoreweather.

And the spine tingling mystery is solved...

I'm pretty sure James is somewhere tracking chemtrails and photogenic ghosts right about now. Dude was never right, boy I tell you what

But to get this back on topic before the hammer is struck, February definitely looks like yet another month below normal. Musings of a tanking -AO teleconnection with a continued near record blocking pattern across the Pacific/ Gulf of Alaska would support that.

After the cold winters of 09 and 10, temperatures were still record hot during the summer. It'll be interesting to see how things play out during the '14 summer... Maybe it'll actually rain this time in June like it's supposed to. Who knows?

[Belmer]

Crossing my fingers February is a good month for us folks in northern TX and in Oklahoma. We are bone dry. And with the ridge out west finally breaking away, early next week looks interesting.

[TxJohn]

Se TX? GFS has been showing a major snowstorm in most of Texas in the Feb 5-9 range....couple GFS runs have showed that as well as very chilly air and longer lasting.

[Belmer]

Se TX? GFS has been showing a major snowstorm in most of Texas in the Feb 5-9 range....couple GFS runs have showed that as well as very chilly air and longer lasting.

Models I have looked at recently show NE TX, into OK and much of Arkansas under the gun more next week regarding winter weather than the south. Y'all have had y'all's fun! It's time for us to steal it back! Hahaha. I'm just ready for rain at this point honestly. I almost forgot what it looks like. OKC is closing out with .6 of precip for month of January.

[ticka1]

models busted with jan 28th event - i have no faith in what they say going forward.

[cperk]

models busted with jan 28th event - i have no faith in what they say going forward.

I understand your frustration but the models are not perfect the NWS offices are under a gun when it comes to severe weather events, they have to produce a forecast to warn the public days in advance I would hate to have their job.

[Belmer]

models busted with jan 28th event - i have no faith in what they say going forward.

I wouldn't call this storm a "bust" by any means. It just didn't go the way we all thought it would pan out like it showed over the weekend.

[don]

Yep I saw the same thing, i think at the very least we'll definitely have something to talk about by this weekend, as I expect the models to start "sniffing" out finer details by then, that cant be seen in the lower resolution range.

[ticka1]

models busted with jan 28th event - i have no faith in what they say going forward.

I understand your frustration but the models are not perfect the NWS offices are under a gun when it comes to severe weather events, they have to produce a forecast to warn the public days in advance I would hate to have their job.

i hereby eat crow with my post. i have no patience.

[HouTXmetro]

What's disappointing about this week is most models were forecasting a changeover to snow for this event. Pro-Mets assured us the air would be Plenty cold and below freezing therefore supporting snow after initial mix. The only question was QPF amounts. It seemed like the opposite occured. Temps struggled to get as low as advertised in the SE TX Weather Dome, the warm nose wreaked havoc with P-types, but the moisture was there.

Can't gripe to much though. 2 events, albeit minor in less than 7 days for this neck of the woods is a Extremely RARE.

[weatherguy425]

All,

I think the moral of this story is that 'it ain't over 'til it's over'. Remember... TWO winter weather events within ONE week... in SETX?


Nothing to snark at. And, actually, many did mention that P-Type would be an issue - on this forum and others. However, while widespread heavy snow did not fall - there certainly were travel issues. Speaking from a forecasting standpoint, I do believe NWS, and city officials made the right call. We would have had many., many accidents, had the 'normal' amount of people been commuting through the morning. There are icy spots, and yes, there have been closures.


Now, on to actual weather. The CMC, ECMWF, and occasionally the GFS all advertise a huge pattern change starting late this weekend. Also, teleconnections (-PNA, -EPO/WPO, and -AO) support cold and unsettled weather across the inter-mountain west - eastward! Gone is the ridging in the southwest, now replaced with troughing. At the same time, western and northwestern Canada is forecasted to cool dramatically - the stage is set for storm(s) to traverse the entire Southern Plains with a variety of impacts...

Each storm laying down snow-pack, and tapping into a frigid Canadian air-mass. Time will tell what actually occurs, but y'all, active weather remains on the horizon.

[don]

Add 12z Euro to the mix, its showing a winter storm across the central and southern half of the state around the 7th & 8th also...

[srainhoutx]

Add 12z Euro to the mix, its showing a winter storm across the central and southern half of the state around the 7th & 8th also...

If the Euro is correct, that storm will have much colder air entrenched across our Region as a potent upper low drops S into Mexico and treks E across Texas. While it is too soon to know the 'finer details', temperatures could tumble to the -10 to -20C range at 850MB suggesting our source Region of Eastern Alaska/Western Canada will unload a very chilly Arctic air mass with a cross Polar flow from Siberia. We will see.

01282014 12Z Euro f216.gif

01282014 12Z GEFS gfs-ens_T2ma_namer_41.png

[Ptarmigan]

What's disappointing about this week is most models were forecasting a changeover to snow for this event. Pro-Mets assured us the air would be Plenty cold and below freezing therefore supporting snow after initial mix. The only question was QPF amounts. It seemed like the opposite occured. Temps struggled to get as low as advertised in the SE TX Weather Dome, the warm nose wreaked havoc with P-types, but the moisture was there.

Can't gripe to much though. 2 events, albeit minor in less than 7 days for this neck of the woods is a Extremely RARE.

It is very rare to see two winter events in less than a week. Even 1973 or 1985 could not do that.

[Ptarmigan]

February has some of the biggest freezes like 1895, 1899, 1951, 1985, and 1989. It also have the heaviest snowfall totals, 1895 and 1960.

[weatherag]

A nice swath of 2-4 inch snowfall over the Hill Country and southeast Texas on the Euro...and the upper level trof axis is still hanging back over New Mexico at hour 240.

[TexasMetBlake]

18z gfs is close but beyond truncation so we'll have to watch from afar to see what model is going to give in: the bitterly cold and snowy 12z Euro or the warmer and wet 18z gfs.

As we saw with the last two events now, the models will waffle up until the very start of the event and even then will often be surprised by the placement and qpf that verifies that the models ''didn't pick up on.''

Btw, an all-time record high in Alaska today. Port Alsworth, AK: 62°F. Not only is it a record for the township but it's an all-time record high for January for the entire state! Pretty simple meteorology: strong ridging up north over the Alaska, cold in the lower 48 (generally east of the Rockies).

I can't believe I'm saying this but is it Spring yet? lol. I'm a cold weather lover but dang...