December 2017: End Of The Year Weather

[wxman57]

Temperatures in west and NW Canada are only about 5-8 degrees below normal. That's not very cold. Latest GFS run says no winter precip across Texas through 16 days. I didn't buy that prediction of a 1060-1070mb high coming down without any cold air in northern Canada. Chances of any winter precip here are very low through the end of the month.

[stormlover]

I agree, I've been telling people to not model hug and get to excited.

[wxman57]

I just found out that I can plot soundings from the European model on my workstation.

Here's the 00Z Euro Skew-T sounding for IAH on Christmas morning. Relative humidity near zero aloft. Surface temperature about -1C (30F). Cold and dry.

[TexasMetBlake]

Wow, wxman57! That's cool. I wish we had that capability with our station computers.

I'm growing less confident about anything superlative regarding this cold outbreak. It appears a lot of the coldest air will go east. Highs in the 40s for a few days will be the big story. We may get into the upper 20s a night or two but again, that's hardly anything to get excited over. I agree with the other mets on here and that is until I see the source region of western Canada get super cold (-30, -40, -50), then it'll be hard to get anything super cold here.

Here in the shop, there seems to be somewhat of a bet going on: a few think that the long modeled winter storm by the GFS will reveal its ugly head 24 hours before it hits. I'm not in that camp but we'll see.

[TexasMetBlake]

Here's the GFS sounding from Christmas morning (12z). Showing almost the exact same thing as the Euro except surface temp is a touch warmer. Boy if anything did fall in an overrunning situation, it would almost certainly be in the form of snow though.

[stormlover]

trend is ur friend!!

[MontgomeryCoWx]

trend is ur friend!!

Well then that means a storm and colder than progged. Models have completely whiffed on the rain storms this week and we have run cooler than modeled.

[DoctorMu]

trend is ur friend!!

Well then that means a storm and colder than progged. Models have completely whiffed on the rain storms this week and we have run cooler than modeled.

Yep - Rain and cool temps have overperformed in College Station as well.

So...I'd bank on cold and rainy, then. Everyone happy?

[TexasMetBlake]

trend is ur friend!!

Well then that means a storm and colder than progged. Models have completely whiffed on the rain storms this week and we have run cooler than modeled.

Yep - Rain and cool temps have overperformed in College Station as well.

So...I'd bank on cold and rainy, then. Everyone happy?

Nobody said it wasn't going to be cold. It's just not going to be anything special or off the charts. In fact, the temperatures we saw during the snow a week and a half ago might come in colder than what we'll see for highs around Christmas.

[stormlover]

sucks that the models are coming in like this but heck that's why I tell people all the time don't jump models 8-10 days before it could happen especially with winter weather in Texas.

[MontgomeryCoWx]

sucks that the models are coming in like this but heck that's why I tell people all the time don't jump models 8-10 days before it could happen especially with winter weather in Texas.

My point is the models are still clueless up until ‘Nowcasting time’ ... geez, they completely missed today’s storm in north texas.

[stormlover]

mmmm we shall see, I mean I usually don't predict about what's going to happen till about 2-3 days before but I think the models are getting grasp about this weekend. The models last week 8-10 days out were clueless, tomorrow is WED, they are slowly figuring it out.

[snowman65]

What's with those temps in Canada Jan 2-4 on GFS? I know...it's 2 weeks away..but that's pretty cold.

[BlueJay]

The gentle showers that we have been receiving today have been quite summer-like, because the sun has peaked out from all of those clouds from time to time while it rains. Kind of nice to think about warmer days-just 2 days away from the official start of the winter season.

[sambucol]

Are we going to have freezing temps this weekend?

[Cromagnum]

Are we going to have freezing temps this weekend?

Won't know until this weekend.

[jasons2k]

So I had a 70% chance of rain for tonight, up from 60% and 50% in previous forecasts. I put down some lawn products yesterday in anticipation of the rain. I got out and ran some errands today, and was pretty excited with the heating and southerly flow getting things all juiced up.

And then I get home, check the forecast, and it's down to 40%?!?! What the heck? I may seriously need to run my sprinklers now. I was not expecting that...

[TexasBreeze]

May be lucky to get a thin line to pass through the area. 30 to 40 percent chances now. It rained decently overnight!

[mckinne63]

So I had a 70% chance of rain for tonight, up from 60% and 50% in previous forecasts. I put down some lawn products yesterday in anticipation of the rain. I got out and ran some errands today, and was pretty excited with the heating and southerly flow getting things all juiced up.

And then I get home, check the forecast, and it's down to 40%?!?! What the heck? I may seriously need to run my sprinklers now. I was not expecting that...

Forecast at KHOU this morning said Sugarland area could expect storms just before lunchtime. Not a drop here.

[srainhoutx]

82F at the house today for the high. I had some sprinkles driving to the Medical Center this afternoon, but other than that those models that suggested the warm front stalling around Brenham to Lake Livingston failed miserably.