aggiegeog

I made it to 45 yesterday and 44 today. Saturday barely touched 60 here before rains knocked it back down in the late afternoon. Looks like we are in for something similar this weekend maybe.

Northern NM mountains are very snowy right now with 1-2 feet from the last storm and the current storm will be in that range at the resorts. This is pretty typical for that area with temps warming well into the 40s and even 50s between storms.

Snow in West Texas yesterday and the consecutive freezing mornings here, not bad.

Surprise decent freeze for most of North and East Texas this morning. Many locales in mid 20s which is 5 to 10 degrees below the forecasted low from last night. A few warm spots as usual with traditional cooling and a couple spots in the low 20s.

This winter has yet to see any particular pattern set up for any period of time.

11 hours ago, bubba hotep said:

Euro weeklies have time of death about Feb 3rd... just ugly. 

Eh, Euro has not been good this winter. GFS has been better at long range and Euro weeklies have just about polar opposite of reality at long range. NE Pacific ridging, building cold in NW NA, STJ active, and Canadian blocking are all present or expected over the next few weeks and winter in the past few years has shifted from mid-Nov through mid-Feb to now being more early Dec through early March. To compare to hurricane season we are still in August and the atmosphere is favorable generally, it's not like we have have a roaring jet into Canada.

Edit to add: in the 17 days leading up to the March 2-3, 2014 extreme sleet storm which featured temps subfreezing highs and lows in the teens we were above average for 14 days with most days in the 70s during that time. One big event will quickly make us forget about warm periods during winter.

My rain gauge says 7" at my place in Hideaway. BTW so much for warmth today high in the 50s with clouds finally just breaking up now.

Looking like we are in for a major Polar Vortex disruption. It has been a while since we have had a solid long term -AO. As long as we can get a -EPO which has been at least transient lately we will get some cold and the newly active STJ has me getting excited for February.

Maybe the weekend storm can ease a bit south and find another 10-15 degrees of cooling. We can hope at least. I'll take my chances with a sub 540 closed low in the heart of winter.

We received about 2.5" of rain at my house last night.

Front has pretty much stalled over me. Mid 60s on the south side of town and mid 50s on north side. I am at 60. My town is only 5,000 people.

On 1/7/2017 at 11:09 PM, aggiegeog said:

Angel Fire can get incredibly cold, one of the coldest places in the lower levels 48 often. It's good to see the snow pack really start to build. 

On Sat. Angel Fire started at -35 and by noon it reached 0 and 37 by late afternoon. Those high valleys sure can have some wild swings in temps when winds die off and skies clear. Today's low was near 40 with south winds and cloudy drizzly skies.

This weekend's storm is an odd set up, but all models are very consistent with it. I will be interested in if models trend to a more typical solution. It is just such a large gradient in temps for it to just sit almost stationary. If it does that is gonna be why we get such extreme rainfall.

On another note, check out the rise in temps over the Panhandle since the weekend, up to a 90 degree difference between now and Saturday morning. And they will be back in the snow this weekend.

13 and 15 the last two mornings. 

Pretty good consistency between the major models on an ice storm from N TX to the Great Lakes. This watch the surface high up north because there is some very cold air to be trapped in the Siberia. Remember that before this outbreak turned out so cold it was the next one that had been the one that we expected extreme cold from. 

6 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Amazing what snow and clouds can do up here, was supposed to be near 50F today, never got about 36F. Lows have finally been in the teens in Albuquerque.

Got down to -33F this morning in Angel Fire (8600 feet up) - pretty cold even up there.

Angel Fire can get incredibly cold, one of the coldest places in the lower levels 48 often. It's good to see the snow pack really start to build. 

Already down to 17 here before midnight with clear skies and a 10 dp. Wind is 10mph though but it out of the N so while not ideal radiationally it will continue cold air advection and promote lowering dps. Record low in Tyler is the 15 for the 6th which won't be missed by much and 13 for the 7th. Not sure Tyler can make 13 but a close call is possible. So much for the low 20s forecast from earlier today.

Update: 14/11 early this morning 

Snow! Or at least flurries in the Lindale. 

7 minutes ago, cstrunk said:

You're still sitting better than us in East TX! Wintry precip to our SE and NW... Nada here.

It looks like it will make it at least to areas north of I-20 though hoping it makes it to Tyler. I am considering heading home early to Hideaway so i am on the N side of I-20.

5 minutes ago, cstrunk said:

 

The radar returns are lining up pretty well with Lake Ray Roberts, Lewisville Lake, and Grapevine Lake. Lake effect snow in DFW... who'da thunk it?

I think we had some around here with the early March 2014 storm the morning after we had a few inches of sleet it was in the teens with flurries and breezy winds. We don't have as big of lakes around here as DFW does though.

26 minutes ago, jhamps10 said:

Had flakes when I was walking out the door in SW Arlington, drove through a decent sized burst on 20 near the East loop 820 merge.. NBC5 is saying that this is Lake Effect off of Lake Grapevine... Not sure I'm buying that but okay whatever. 

 

Getting some light flurries now at my office in Downtown Ft Worth, hard to tell since I'm 33 stories up

I can buy the lake effect idea with NE winds off of the lakes and temps in the low 20s. Lake effect snow is not as rare as you would think when temps get this low with wind blowing decently around here.

MPING map is lighting up over DFW with snow reports.

The northern NM mountains are looking at a couple feet at resort level through tomorrow and the peaks could see well over 3 feet.

38 minutes ago, bubba hotep said:

One trend in N. Texas this past week or so has been for the models to be too dry in the lower levels. Does that hold for tomorrow? 

That's what I am hoping for, because ratios look good with a saturated sub 500mb dendritic growth zone. The I-30 corridor could do well if adequate moisture at the low levels makes it in. The Gulf low looks to cut off the moisture though. 

We are looking at three winter precip areas tomorrow in Texas.

First one is trending north towards the I40 in OK and the Panhandle. It looks to produce around 6" in the Panhandle and a couple inches as you move into eastern OK. This could still trend back south towards the Red River, but I don't see much of this falling in N TX. This event is mainly early tomorrow.  

Second area falls tomorrow afternoon into tomorrow evening. It looks to spread flurries to a dusting over N and E TX. Areas along I-30 in the NE TX could see up to a couple inches though as there is more moisture there. 

The third area is associated to the Gulf low which may throw some moisture into sub freezing air in inland SE TX in the form of sleet and maybe freezing rain late tomorrow. 

Features (surface high and low, 700mb vort, 500mb trough, etc) are trending just a bit stronger for Friday on the GFS. I think the overall idea of flurries over N TX trending to a dusting to an inch further east along I-20 on Friday is solid. Along with the early Friday 1-3" along and north of the Red River.