December: New Years Eve Outlook

[Portastorm]

Uh huh ... and that is a little different than the last GFS-based meteogram you showed. Then again it is the GFS where any one particular operational run could suggest just about anything.

Point being ... Old Man Winter is coming back next weekend. For Houston. And Austin. And much of Texas. And he seems a bit cranky too.

[wxman57]

[quote="Ed Mahmoud"
Long range GFS within a few degrees of freezing, and you're automatically ruling out freezing/frozen? Multiple runs (including today's 12Z) beyond the resolution lobotomy below 40F with precip, and I'm staying 1/32nd glass full optimistic. Now, if it is the models are saying 3 or 4C the day before the event, optimism could drop below 1/64th.

Not a trained, highly paid professional, and I am a silver lining optimist, but I'm not giving up.[/quote]

Of course not. There was talk of 1983 and 1989 and I said I don't see anything to indicate THAT cold anywhere around here.

[jeff]

I see nothing in last night's GFS to indicate any frozen precip or very cold temps here through 15 days. I do see temps near 80 next week and then a light freeze next weekend (no precip).

http://home.comcast.net/~cgh57/iahgfs0znov28.gif

http://home.comcast.net/~cgh57/iahgfsext0znov28.gif

Long range GFS within a few degrees of freezing, and you're automatically ruling out freezing/frozen? Multiple runs (including today's 12Z) beyond the resolution lobotomy below 40F with precip, and I'm staying 1/32nd glass full optimistic. Now, if it is the models are saying 3 or 4C the day before the event, optimism could drop below 1/64th.


Not a trained, highly paid professional, and I am a silver lining optimist, but I'm not giving up.

There will be a lot of very cold air building into the NW and N US this week, not sure the GFS is fully understanding that. Most models want to keep the heart of this bitter cold locked in the NW US, but once in the plains I am not sure if the SW flow aloft will be enough to prevent at least some of it from bleeding southward. Still not looking at anything extreme at the moment, but think the GFS is too warm especially if the air mass is shallow and overrun.

[srainhoutx]

The Day 11+ analogs continue to point toward a December 2008 scenario which brought tied the earliest accumulating snow to Houston every recorded dating back to 1944 to be broken the following year in early December 2009. It will be interesting to see if we see a similar pattern develop that brought a cold core 5H low across New Mexico and Texas embedded within a noisy sub tropical jet and the Arctic air appears to come in the form of several short waves diving S into the Great Basin and the Desert SW well into the medium/longer range period. We will see.

[don]

12z GFS shows a pattern conductive for wintry mischief next weekend. It has us in the mid to low 30s with overrunning precip fwiw

[weatherguy425]

Just as interesting to me (as how cold we actually get) is the duration of this cold spell. Looking at a week+ of cold air across the lower 48. Pattern just keeps wanting to re-load out west. Wouldn't be surprised if I (in Lubbock) saw a night, or two, of single digits out of this - first 'non snow-pack' induced low temp below 10° in a couple of years.

[srainhoutx]

Brrr...a full latitude trough even during the day 10 time frame with an Arctic Outbreak fully underway across the Inter Mountain West and Plains tends to raise an eyebrow.

[srainhoutx]

The afternoon Updated surface charts from the HPC/WPC suggest the Arctic front will cross Texas during the overnight hours of this coming Friday.

[Portastorm]

I wouldn't get too hung up on the model depiction and focus more on the pattern and potential. What will we be dealing with? We'll be dealing with a shallow Arctic airmass overhead. A snowpack cover deeper and wider in scope than what we saw with last weekend's cold front, thus, the air should be colder and stay longer. A southwest flow which looks to remain "active" after cold frontal passage with overrunning precip developing later in the weekend.

All of this means the potential clearly exists for a winter storm in parts of Texas next weekend. The ingredients will be there but, as always, timing will be of the utmost importance.

[skidog40]

I look at this way, when has snow ever been predicted 7 days out and came to fruition

[srainhoutx]

I believe wxman57 won a 'friendly wager' with his forecast of the 2004 Christmas Eve miracle snow that whitened the beaches from Corpus to Sabine Pass a week out as well. Winter Weather forecasting for most of our Region is tricky at best, but some memorable events such as January 1973 are often the ones where no one expects it and we are pleasantly surprised when they happen. That said we cannot get wintry mischief without the cold air and it does appear that we may have that in place by this time next weekend.

[Texas Pirate]

How come, so far, forecasters have nailed the winter forecast and the cane season was such a bust?
I'm running out of sweaters and its only the 1st of December.

[Kludge]

Brrr...a full latitude trough even during the day 10 time frame with an Arctic Outbreak fully underway across the Inter Mountain West and Plains tends to raise an eyebrow.

Mr. Meteogram with a post showing we never get below 40 degrees in 3..2..1...

[don]

0z GFS looks rather icy across central and southeast Texas next weekend

[ticka1]

0z GFS looks rather icy across central and southeast Texas next weekend

music to my ears!!!!

[sambucol]

0z GFS looks rather icy across central and southeast Texas next weekend

music to my ears!!!!

Mine, too, Ticka!!!

[TexasBreeze]

GFS highs (DW Hooks) low to mid 30's with overrunning precip. Freezing rain Sat, Sun, and Monday. Very shallow, but strong arctic front.

[Andrew]

GFS highs (DW Hooks) low to mid 30's with overrunning precip. Freezing rain Sat, Sun, and Monday. Very shallow, but strong arctic front.

Not so confident with the handling with the middle layers of the atmosphere. Models really seem to slow down the movement of the Front and trough once it hits the Texas border. We learned from this last event how wrong that can be at times. Forcing from the gulf (while strong) doesn't look strong enough to stop the progression of the colder air (especially from a source region like Northern Canada)

[Portastorm]

Yeah, the KAUS meteogram based on the 0z GFS actually shows ice pellets and freezing rain for 12/9-12/11.

"Fun" times ahead.

[don]

0z Euro looks onboard also, temps are slightly warmer than Gfs though (mid to upper 30s) instead of the GFS low to mid 30's.