January 2019 - Active Progressive WX Pattern Ahead

[redneckweather]

Already down to 33 at my house up here near the lake.

[DoctorMu]

8454E167-A83F-4B40-9629-BD6B1B380086.pngSNIFFING ON SOMETHING?

Similar to today’s scenario, which fwiw the Canadian had nailed 5 days.

The cold column looks a little deeper.

[DoctorMu]

I gotta be honest. The wind and cold in Galveston and back in BCS doesn’t bother me at all.

I’m grateful to have $58 natural gas bills instead of $600 A/C and water bills.

Jason, I have one word for you: Greenhouse . And not Effect. Lol

Just enjoying the change of pace until 70 degree dewpoints strike again!

[jasons2k]

Hehe the lower utility bills are indeed much better.

One of my coldest experiences ever in life was a chilly, blustery night years ago at Festival of Lights on the island.

Greenhouses - good ones - can get quite expensive. But maybe something to look into, after the pool goes in.

37 here now. Dew point still 31. Perhaps the ground moisture will keep the temps up, but there might be a lot of frost in the morning. A heavy frost can wreak more havoc on tender plants than a freeze. At least mine are covered

[Texaspirate11]

This pretty much sums it up....

[don]

The 0z FV3 trended in the right direction with next week's system
showing frozen precip across east Texas including southeast Texas on Wednesday fwiw.

[srainhoutx]

Very heavy frost out there this morning. Most locations except for S and E of Downtown to the Coast have seen at least a light freeze.

[CRASHWX]

25 degrees at my casa in central Hardin County 26 miles north of BEAUMONT

[jasons2k]

A chilly 29 with heavy frost here this morning. Whatever green was emerging from the lawn just got torched.

Onto watching next week’s system.

[Belmer]

Both Bush and Hobby recorded light freezes overnight -

Bush got down to 30 at 5AM and has since remained at that temperature.
Hobby got down to 32 shortly before 7AM.

Models have trended slightly warmer for the cold front next week, I expect though it will trend back cooler as we get closer in. Should see another light freeze next Wednesday night.

[CrashTestDummy]

29 at 0700 in northern Brazoria County. Frost is everywhere.

[tireman4]

000
FXUS64 KHGX 241144
AFDHGX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX
544 AM CST Thu Jan 24 2019

.AVIATION [12Z TAF Issuance]...

Weak high pressure over the area has allowed for calm winds and
clear skies. VFR conditions with light winds are expected through
the next 24-30 hours.

Overpeck

&&

.PREV DISCUSSION /Issued 339 AM CST Thu Jan 24 2019/...

.DISCUSSION...
Surface temperatures as of 3 AM were in the upper 30s along the
coast to mid 20s in our northern counties, with dewpoints in the mid
20s to low 30s region wide. Model guidance has struggled to keep up
with observations, remaining a few degrees too warm. Trended colder
than guidance in the short term, with high temperatures today
expected to rise into the mid to upper 50s, with sunny skies
overhead.

Overnight temperatures will fall into the 30s once more, with
temperatures in the mid to upper 40s along the immediate coast. Some
of the short term guidance such as the TT WRF, ARW, and NMM show
light precipitation late tonight into Friday morning tracking
south, mainly north of I-10 and west of I-45. Forecast soundings
show some saturation in the 850-700mb layer, with a very dry
pocket of air aloft. This precipitation also looks in phase with
the right entrance region of the 250mb jet streak that is
overhead, helping to provide some extra lift. With such profiles,
the possibility of light rain or freezing drizzle could be
possible during this time frame. Confidence is low given the
trends in recent short term model runs and the lack of moisture.
Therefore, have left the mention of light rain or freezing drizzle
out of the forecast for now but this will be worth keeping an eye
on as we move into the afternoon.

High pressure shifts east of the area tomorrow. Winds tonight will
be mostly out of the SE before turning NE behind a dry weak frontal
boundary that slides through SE TX early Friday morning. This should
allow high temperatures Friday to be a touch colder than today by
only a few degrees. By the afternoon hours, partly cloudy skies
return to the forecast and moisture values will be on the rise as
winds turn back onshore by Friday evening.

A coastal trough will slide north over the lower to middle Texas
coast late Saturday into Sunday morning increasing our chance for
showers over our southwestern zones such as Wharton, Jackson, and
Matagorda counties. Additionally, another weak dry frontal
boundary will shift into the region early Sunday, acting to turn
winds once again out of the northeast. Following the coastal
trough, our next best chance for precipitation will be late Monday
into Tuesday morning, when another strong cold front swings
through SE TX. Precipitable water values increase to near 0.75
inches and with strong upper-level forcing behind the boundary,
anticipate another line of showers to slide through the region.
Most recent model runs show the Canadian solution to be the
fastest and wettest with this front, while the GFS and ECMWF trail
behind by about six hours, placing the front just offshore by
sunrise Tuesday morning. ECMWF remains the driest with this
feature. Temperatures behind this system will once again fall to
near freezing Tuesday night into Wednesday, but do look to remain
above hard freeze criteria at this time.

Hathaway

.MARINE...
Winds and seas should continue to decrease this morning so we will
drop any advisories for the upper Texas coastal waters. Light
northeast winds today and tonight should increase Friday as another
front slides off the coast. A coastal trough is expected to form
Saturday and Saturday night but largely remain off the coast and
farther out in the Gulf. The main impact will be enhanced easterly
winds that decrease on Sunday. Southerly winds increase again Monday
with the next strong cold front on Tuesday. It looks like there will
not be any marine hazards until the front on Tuesday at which we
might need advisories or gale watch/warnings.

Overpeck

&&

.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS...

College Station (CLL) 57 35 54 40 59 / 0 10 0 0 20
Houston (IAH) 57 37 57 42 59 / 0 0 0 0 10
Galveston (GLS) 53 47 54 51 57 / 0 0 0 0 10

&&

.HGX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...

TX...None.
GM...None.

&&

$$


AVIATION...Overpeck

[CRASHWX]

Looks pretty intimidating!

[redneckweather]

26 at my house this morning. Next weeks front will be about the same or a hair colder...just your good solid seasonal fronts for this time of year. I don't see any precip with it either. Someone mentioned the fv3 does but that model imo is garbage.

[CRASHWX]

FV3 did really good with this last event several days out all the others did not perform as well even did better than mesoscale

[Kingwood36]

FV3 did really good with this last event several days out all the others did not perform as well even did better than mesoscale

Agreed it was the only one showing wintery precip constantly

[Belmer]

FV3 did really good with this last event several days out all the others did not perform as well even did better than mesoscale

Agree, overall the GFSFV3 did a decent job many days out picking up a wintry mix for SE and E Texas. It remained consistent in nearly every run. Although it did well with the wintry precip, it did poorly in accumulation as FV3 (going back to 1/21 on the 12z) up to the actual event it had anywhere from 0.5-5 inches of sleet/snow across the area. Remember, it had the whole back end of the precip shield all snow/sleet extending about 50 miles west to east from the Tennessee Valley all the way down to SETX coast.
GFS (old) wasn't quite as bullish with the amounts and kept it further north in NE TX. Either way... none of the amounts materialized. Not even sure NE TX picked up any accumulation more than just a cold rain. That was fairly expected though as if the temps were a few degrees colder aloft, I'm sure that would have panned out. Just couldn't quite pick upon the extent of the warm nose.

Going back and looking at the mesoscale models:
NAM 12km showed hints at wintry mix in the 18z run on the 22nd and the 00z run on the 23rd. 06z and 12z lost the 'wintry mix' but kept the overrunning rain which ended up falling as sleet over the area yesterday morning.

NAM showed this as well in the 18z run on the 21st, 06z, 18z run on the 22nd and the 00z run on the 23rd (mainly in our northern counties).

HRRR showed hints of it in the 18z run on the 22nd (specifically at hour 20 in Montgomery and Grimes Co.). Several runs on the 23rd showed a quick change over to mix with the HRRR becoming more aggressive as the event got closer - 10z, 11z, 12z and 13z runs all supported winter precip here in SETX.

Always neat to go back and see how models actually performed once the event has passed. This becomes more frustrating though in the spring looking at severe weather and picking your "target".
Overall though, for as much model bashing has been going on, models didn't do too terrible for this event. Now lets see how they start handling midweek next week.

[TexasMetBlake]

I think the bigger story is what may happen with the polar vortex dropping into the midwest a week from today. The 00z Euro showing scary low temps -- coldest in years for Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin? This would be seriously dangerous stuff that just boggles my mind. #BarneyOnTheAttack

Regardless, not much here as most goes east.

Btw, whoever made the post about it being a lame winter a few pages back, I agree 100% but in doing some research, last year was as well despite the multiple winter weather events that masked the blowtorch November (+4.9) and February (+6.1) with a relatively normal December (-0.7). January 2018 was the only month that was truly cold with a negative departure of more than 4 degrees.

This year, we had a super cold November (-3.6) while December came in +1.2 degrees and January is running about the same thus far. With all the talk of TPV and negative oscillations this or positive oscillations that. Just goes to show that there's much more to the ingredients to get cold here than just having a substantial SSW event. I don't see anything in the models through the next 16 days that gets me overly excited. Some cold shots but nothing that gives a severe case of "analysis paralysis" where I have to see very single model run as it comes in.

It should be noted that we have yet to even hit the 20s in Houston -- something we accomplished 8 times last year through January 24th.

All that said, what constitutes a "good" winter anyway? Is it the amount of freezes? The severeity or longevity of freezes? The amount of winter weather events? Using that criteria, there are only a handful of benchmark winters we've observed here in the last 150 years.

1895: 20-30 inch snowfall
1899: Back to back nights in the single digits
1930: Lowest temp on record
1973: Multiple accumulating snowfalls
1983: Longest duration freeze, snow and severely cold
1989: Single digits, snow
2004: Christmas snow
2018: Multiple snows, first teens in 22 years.

Those are the ones that come to mind. Even if I missed two or three, the point here is that truly "great winters" in terms of severity are rare and occur only 2 or 3 times in a lifetime.

[jasons2k]

Excellent post Blake and thanks for putting things into perspective with somd excellent examples.

[sau27]

I think the bigger story is what may happen with the polar vortex dropping into the midwest a week from today. The 00z Euro showing scary low temps -- coldest in years for Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin? This would be seriously dangerous stuff that just boggles my mind. #BarneyOnTheAttack

00z euro midwest temps.png

Regardless, not much here as most goes east.

Btw, whoever made the post about it being a lame winter a few pages back, I agree 100% but in doing some research, last year was as well despite the multiple winter weather events that masked the blowtorch November (+4.9) and February (+6.1) with a relatively normal December (-0.7). January 2018 was the only month that was truly cold with a negative departure of more than 4 degrees.

This year, we had a super cold November (-3.6) while December came in +1.2 degrees and January is running about the same thus far. With all the talk of TPV and negative oscillations this or positive oscillations that. Just goes to show that there's much more to the ingredients to get cold here than just having a substantial SSW event. I don't see anything in the models through the next 16 days that gets me overly excited. Some cold shots but nothing that gives a severe case of "analysis paralysis" where I have to see very single model run as it comes in.

It should be noted that we have yet to even hit the 20s in Houston -- something we accomplished 8 times last year through January 24th.

All that said, what constitutes a "good" winter anyway? Is it the amount of freezes? The severeity or longevity of freezes? The amount of winter weather events? Using that criteria, there are only a handful of benchmark winters we've observed here in the last 150 years.

1895: 20-30 inch snowfall
1899: Back to back nights in the single digits
1930: Lowest temp on record
1973: Multiple accumulating snowfalls
1983: Longest duration freeze, snow and severely cold
1989: Single digits, snow
2004: Christmas snow
2018: Multiple snows, first teens in 22 years.

Those are the ones that come to mind. Even if I missed two or three, the point here is that truly "great winters" in terms of severity are rare and occur only 2 or 3 times in a lifetime.

Welp. by this measure I've used up all of my "great" winters and I'm only 31.