February 2016: Quiet Warm Weather To End The Month

[wxman57]

What all this means is that we could see a low in the upper 20s around the 11th-12th of February. The pattern doesn't look like it would support precipitation in the cold air.

[srainhoutx]

The overnight ensembles and Teleconnection Indices are suggesting a colder regime may well become established near the mid February timeframe. The ECMWF Seasonal Ensembles continue to suggest the MJO may return to a more amplified orbit as the month of February begins. As wxman57 stated, we may not see much in the way of moisture when the coldest air arrives, but there are uncertainties in the extended range that we just cannot predict beyond 3 to 5 days when the Hemispheric Pattern is reshuffling. Some of the operational and ensemble guidance do indicate the potential of a Coastal wave developing as the coldest air pushes South out of the Plains, but that is way out in the future to accurately predict regarding our sensible weather for February 8th and beyond.

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[srainhoutx]

Mike Ventrice just sent out a couple of tweets:

Michael Ventrice ‏@MJVentrice · 25m25 minutes ago
Time to get PUMPED for Winter. BIG, sustainable cold wave coming in February. That 2nd week... CONUS wide cold

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Michael Ventrice ‏@MJVentrice · 13m13 minutes ago
Ridge to build from California up to the N. Pole and into Greenland. This will open the arctic gates for brutal cold

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[BiggieSmalls]

Are we talking teens in DFW, mid 20s in Houston if this pans out?

[srainhoutx]

Are we talking teens in DFW, mid 20s in Houston if this pans out?

The 00Z GFS was suggesting mid 20's for DFW, Mid/Upper 20's of Austin and Upper 20's for IAH. Still too far out to know exactly what our sensible weather will be though.

[srainhoutx]

The 12Z GEFS suggests cold air building across the Plains from Canada with a rather deep SW to NE cold upper trough overhead after the cold air arrives. The GFS ensemble members are suggesting a rather noisy sub tropical jet could be overhead during that timeframe with perhaps a bit of moisture. Too soon to know what the sensible weather with be more than 10 days out, but the Global Ensembles have been advertising this potential for several days, so it will be interesting to monitor as we move into the next week timeframe. Get out and enjoy the warm weather while we have it. I definitely looks like some chilly air is heading our way mid next week and possibly into mid February.

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[srainhoutx]

The 12Z ECMWF is looking very similar to the GEFS around the 240 hour timeframe. A deep cold upper Western trough with a potent storm digging into Northern Mexico with a good shot of cold air moving South out of the Plains into Texas.

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[harpman]

The 12Z ECMWF is looking very similar to the GEFS around the 240 hour timeframe. A deep cold upper Western trough with a potent storm digging into Northern Mexico with a good shot of cold air moving South out of the Plains into Texas.

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Does this cold air move east into Louisiana? Thanks.

[srainhoutx]

The 12Z ECMWF is looking very similar to the GEFS around the 240 hour timeframe. A deep cold upper Western trough with a potent storm digging into Northern Mexico with a good shot of cold air moving South out of the Plains into Texas.


Does this cold air move east into Louisiana? Thanks.

It appears that it will, IF the longer range guidance is correct.

[harpman]

Thank you for your response. I follow your forum all the time from SE La.

[BlueJay]

Sounds cold! I will be watching this closely!

[Cromagnum]

It is way too hot for this time of year. I sweated like crazy doing light yard work the last two days.

[Portastorm]

The 0z and 6z GFS operational runs have backed off on the winter storm scenario for the Feb 9-11 period. However, the 0z Euro operational run lays down a swath of 1-2" of snow across much of south central Texas in that period. The CMC remains bullish as well. The signals are clearly there for a storm system to impact the state in that time frame. As always the big questions will be how cold is the airmass and how much moisture will be in play.

[srainhoutx]

The immediate concern will be the rather High Impact Spring like storm existing the Southern Rockies tomorrow into Tuesday and the Severe Weather potential for our neighbors to the North and East.

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DAY 3 CONVECTIVE OUTLOOK
NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK
0202 AM CST SUN JAN 31 2016

VALID 021200Z - 031200Z

...THERE IS AN ENH RISK OF SVR TSTMS FROM NRN MS INTO WRN KY...

...THERE IS A SLGT RISK OF SVR TSTMS FROM THE OH RIVER VALLEY SWD TO
THE CNTRL GULF COAST...

...THERE IS A MRGL RISK OF SVR TSTMS FROM IL/IN SWD TO THE GULF
COAST...

...SUMMARY...
SCATTERED SEVERE STORMS CAPABLE OF DAMAGING WINDS AND A FEW
TORNADOES ARE POSSIBLE ACROSS THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY INTO THE
LOWER OHIO VALLEY ON TUESDAY WITH A FEW STRONG STORMS ACROSS THE
CENTRAL GULF COAST OVERNIGHT.

...SYNOPSIS...
AN UPPER LOW WILL MOVE FROM KS TO LAKE SUPERIOR WITH AN EXPANSIVE
AREA OF STRONG SWLY FLOW ALOFT SPREADING EWD ACROSS THE MS AND OH
VALLEYS. AT THE SURFACE...LOW PRESSURE WILL MOVE FROM ERN KS INTO IL
DURING THE DAY...WITH A COLD FRONT EXTENDING S FROM THE LOW ALONG
THE MS RIVER BY 00Z. DEWPOINTS IN THE 60S F WILL SPREAD NWD ACROSS
THE WARM SECTOR WITH SUFFICIENT INSTABILITY DEVELOPING TO SUPPORT
SCATTERED SEVERE STORMS WITH THE GREATEST RISK FROM MS NWD TO THE OH
RIVER DURING THE AFTERNOON.

...LOWER MS VALLEY/CNTRL GULF COAST NWD TO THE OH RIVER...
A CAPPING INVERSION WILL RESULT IN A LACK OF EARLY THUNDERSTORM
ACTIVITY ACROSS THE REGION...BUT STRENGTHENING LIFT AHEAD OF THE
ADVANCING SFC LOW/TROUGH SHOULD RESULT IN STORMS DEVELOPING BY 18Z
ACROSS LA...ERN AR...AND SERN MO AHEAD OF THE LOW. AS STRONG WIND
SHEAR ACTS ON THESE STORMS...THEY ARE EXPECTED TO GRADUALLY ORGANIZE
INTO A LINE OF STORMS...WITH A MIXTURE OF BOWING SEGMENTS AND
EMBEDDED. BOTH DAMAGING WINDS AND A FEW TORNADOES WILL BE POSSIBLE.

ALTHOUGH THE LOW AND STRONGEST LIFT WILL DEPART NWD ACROSS THE GREAT
LAKES TUE EVENING AND NIGHT...SUFFICIENT LIFT AND A MOIST AIR MASS
NEAR SRN PORTIONS OF THE FRONT FROM AL INTO THE FL PANHANDLE MAY
SUPPORT A FEW SEVERE STORMS THERE AS WELL.

..JEWELL.. 01/31/2016

[Portastorm]

That is true, srainhoutx. There is also a fire weather danger today in west Texas and stretching into parts of central Texas by Tuesday. It's hard to believe it's there after having the state's wettest year on record ... but NWS offices are expressing concern due to high winds, low humidity, and dead vegetation as a result of it being "winter."

[Katdaddy]

Another Spring 2016 day for the last day of January. 67F with tropical skies in League City this morning. Onward to Feb 2016.

[srainhoutx]

The 12Z Euro and Canadian models are completely opposite of the 12Z GFS. The Euro particularly raises an eyebrow when looking ahead to next weekend. We know that a strong Canadian front will sweep across the Lone Star State on Tuesday with much chillier temperatures late next week. The Euro suggests two cold upper air disturbances passing over our Region after the cold air is in place. Typically in early February IF we can get a shortwave or two passing over cold air at the surface, interesting things can develop. Looks like a long week of watching the various computer schemes to see if this is a mirage or a real potential.

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[Portastorm]

Hit 86 degrees here in Austin at Camp Mabry (KATT) at 3:15 pm, easily shattering the record high for this date of 83 set in 1911. It was probably helped by the West Texas dry line which slipped into town and kinda bisected the metro area with the temp rising 4 degrees and dew point dropping 14 degrees in one hour. Interesting to see we had a 41 degree dew point at KATT while the airport, just miles away, had 53 degree dew point at same time.

[srainhoutx]

The overnight guidance continues to advertise a full latitude trough digging well South across North America. The guidance also suggests a Stratospheric Warming event across the Polar Region of the Northern Hemisphere with a strong blocking signature. The blocking signature is indicated by the orange 'U' shaped area from the West Coast to Greenland. The blue shades are indicative of full latitude trough with temperatures departures nearing the -20 degree range. There are growing indications that some areas may near 2 Standard Deviation below normal, temperature wise. Will this pattern translate to much colder for our Region? It's a bit too soon to know.

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[srainhoutx]

Morning briefing from Jeff:

Record to near record warmth continues today…but colder air will return late Tuesday.

Southerly flow has greatly moistened the low levels of the atmosphere with dewpoints running 60-65 degrees over much of the area. Light winds overnight and this morning with high dewpoints over chilled near shore waters is resulting in a sea fog bank along the upper and mid TX coast. Visibilities have been bouncing all around this morning along the coast between nearly 0 to over 2 miles at times as the sea fog bank sporadically moves inland. Fog has generally lifted into a stratus bank inland with a slightly stronger breeze. No real change until early Tuesday along the coast so expect the fog bank to be maintained and varying visibilities at times.

Think some areas with enough sun will have no problem reaching 80 today and areas across S and SW TX will likely rise into the 90’s.

Upper level storm system heading for the Midwest today and Tuesday will drive a pre frontal trough across the area early Tuesday followed by a strong frontal passage late Tuesday. Pre-frontal trough may be able to squeeze out a shower or two over the region, but moist surface air mass is generally shallow with very dry air mass above…a function of the air mass since late December. Will go with a generous 30% rain chance…but not expecting much.

Dry WNW winds will lower dewpoints and RH values on Tuesday. Have had a bit of fire behavior over the weekend with dead/frozen winter fuels, but think conditions on Tuesday will not support a critical fire weather concern. Conditions will be elevated however especially west of I-45.

Strong cold front will progress across the area late Tuesday afternoon with strong cold air advection driving temperatures into the 30’s by Wednesday morning. Cold high pressure will build down the plains and into TX with cold nights and cool days Wednesday-Friday. Low temperatures Thursday and again on Friday morning may touch freezing in the normally colder locations and away from urban areas. Overall clear skies and little chance of rain beyond Tuesday.

Next weather system will approach the area on Saturday with increasing clouds over the cold surface dome. Moisture once again looks meager, but strong lift will work with what moisture is available to produce at least a chance of showers over mainly the southern half of the region Saturday. If more moisture than currently expected is available…this system could be fairly wet. However pattern of late has been to take the drier solutions…somewhat unusual for TX El Nino winters.

Next Week:
Some of the longer range forecast models…ECMWF and CMC…have been indicating the development and southward progression of an arctic air mass toward the start of next week. Model solutions this winter have been far less than stellar with both cold air intrusions and potential storm systems at the longer range which leaves little confidence in what may transpire next week. While we have experienced a very nice warming trend these last few days…winter is not over.