Stx_Thunder

'Would not expect much cold over the Plains during the next few weeks. Especially, AO likely heading back into a stronger, Positive phase by the end of the month. And at least weak mid-level ridging lingering over the Plains on both GFS and Euro ensembles to start March. Though, ENSO appears to have officially begun its transition away from LN now. Late winter - early spring is typically when it starts. *May be something around mid-March.

New maximum daily rainfall records were set at DFW and Lubbock over the weekend, also. Both (old) records are from 2017.

Decent rainfall totals with the Friday - Saturday frontal system over the state, for February (being the driest month of the year). This should make some kind of impact on the drought coverage on this week's drought monitor update (that was nearing 100% coverage over the entire state). https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?TX

Looks a little interesting this evening with the ongoing severe risk and some more discrete clusters ongoing in S-SETX coastal region on the southern extent of the frontal convective line moving through ETX. Even outflow boundaries alone are producing strong gusts to 50+ mph in STX. Stronger support for lift aloft digging a bit further south in the state than usual (per Euro had projected all week) with the incoming SS trough. And this may also be an indication that ENSO has finally started its transition away from LN and hopefully toward the advertised warm/EN phase in the coming months. Which would likely make the upcoming severe season more interesting with the SS jet anchoring further south. Probably the bigger story today is rainfall amounts especially in NTX over 2" just in the past 24 hours with some flash flood alerts. Especially, considering we're currently in the driest month of the year. Very needed since over 90% of the entire state was already in some kind of ongoing drought status looking at U.S. drought monitor data on February 3rd.

I can only imagine how tough it is to stay comfortably warm. Especially when it goes on for days with the cold still in place in the state all this week. I was without power for only 2 days after hurricane Harvey (2017), and even that wasn't too comfortable either without A/C. 11 K people still look to remain without power in ETX tonight.

About 20K people in ETX still remain without power tonight. Since Saturday night. Namely, Shelby & Nacogdoches counties, that have been "Ground Zero" for this 2026 ETX major ice storm. The outages jumped from 30K (early this morning), back up to near 40K. But those additional 9K outages further south in Jasper county (and east) earlier today may have been unrelated.

Additional Ice & sleet damage reports in NTX/NETX, and SETX (including Houston area), finally came in from DFW and Houston NWS offices. The highest (reported) Freezing rain total in ETX was 3/4", in Panola county. The highest NTX Sleet storm total was 5.5" in Celina, or Collin county.

10.1" of sleet was reported by an NWS met in Pulaski county, AR over the weekend. According to NWS Little Rock public information statement data on sleet reports.

'Never thought even just a 1/2 inch sleet would be enough to cause issues (like pure icing from freezing rain does at a smaller amount like 0.10" or even less). I still find sleet way more interesting than snow, in any case. And always will. Though, I have seen 2 different types of sleet. The more melted kind looks like salt flakes. While actual ice pellets are purely round, and those easily bounce off of just about anything. Which makes those kind really interesting.

Very surprised to read in here the weekend North TX Sleet storm got all the way up into AR & MO, with all the low-level WAA ahead of that major southern-stream trough (that produced a really complex winter storm event in TX). Since I've never experienced a real sleet storm, I do wonder what's the most ever sleet storm total (or depth) in this thread's states? I'm thinking it has to be at least a foot? And I wonder how that's like or driving on it. Apparently, even just 4" sleet pack is enough to get stuck from what I saw in Dallas.

The main takeaways for me on this definitely complex winter storm event was the CTX/ETX major icing. But particularly the strong, wintry thunderstorms with lots of CG strikes early Sunday. Which the models surprisingly, did get right on the very abnormally high 850 Mb instability in the grids (for these shallow/overrunning Arctic airmass scenarios). That, was just pure insane. Mid-level lapse rate was maintained in the -6 to -7 range also. Which Euro advertised would be the case as well.

NTX/DFW Sleet pack was also nothing short of interesting. 'Still wanting to know what was the ultimate, total sleet accu. in that region. But looks like around 5 in. depth. 'Though I don't get why DFW allowed a Mavericks game to go on Saturday evening despite the major ongoing sleet storm. But I'm just guessing that's one of those 100% "Go at your own risk" type things. And I saw a live news report video last night of people getting stuck on highways in the city.

Austin's Bergstrom international airport broke the record low max. temp of 33 F set back in 1961. Sunday's high (today) was 29 F. Also on yesterday the 24th, Del Rio broke the previous max. liquid-equivalent precip record of 0.35 in. set back in 2012. The new record is 0.39 in.

ETX power outages have significantly dropped since early this morning. But several counties still have a significant amount of outages ongoing. A Lot of new ice and winter storm reports to sift through today, and I haven't had normal sleep the past few days. But skimming through in CTX, ETX (even SETX), this ice and winter storm event in the state was by no means a bust. Even San Antonio & Houston did not get spared either. Which the models did not forecast any major icing to happen at all that far south.

ETX power outages are growing this morning (according to Poweroutage.us data that also includes electric providers in each county). It went from 100K a little over 3 hours ago, to about 140K now. https://poweroutage.us/area/state/texas