Texas/New Mexico/Louisiana/Mexico Obs And Discussion Thread Part 6

[bubba hotep]

About a quarter of the 12z Euro EPS members get snow into the DFW area with 6 or 7 being really nice hits. Nearly all of them get the Panhandle and W. Texas in some form or fashion.

[vwgrrc]

About a quarter of the 12z Euro EPS members get snow into the DFW area with 6 or 7 being really nice hits. Nearly all of them get the Panhandle and W. Texas in some form or fashion.

sounds like it's trending better for DFW?

[wxmx]

It is a complicated setup and the models will continue to struggle, but it always seems easier to believe the bad outcomes vs. the good!

Yes, it's a complicated setup, but if you want to simplify it to a key player, keep your eyes on the strength and septentrional build of the ridge in the NW Pac. The reason is two fold:

 

1. The strength of said ridge is important, but it's more critical the northern build of the ridge, as this ridge is the one that some of the previous runs had build into extreme NE Siberia into Alaska. I can't stress enough how important is this ridge for cross polar flows...Runs that had it built and cojoin the W Coast ridge had 1060+mb surface highs.
2. This ridge helps strengthen the trough that goes from just north of Hawaii to the Aleutians. A piece of this trough is forecasted to split and head to the Gulf of Alaska...if it get's there it undercuts and effectively blocks the union of the NW Pac ridge and the W Coast ridge...cutting the flow of arctic air, flattening the W coast ridge which can only build east, instead of north. But if the NW Pac ridge can build into Alaska, that would block that piece of energy to set up shop in the GoA and even retrograde west, strengthening the Aleutian low.

I can't upload images now, so this are a bit time sensitive. The first image shows what happens when the NW Pac ridge builds into Alaska. Check that the low is kept outside the GoA, the W Coast ridge builds mostly NE and merges with the NW Pac ridge.

 

 

OTOH, if the NW Pac doesn't extend into AK, the low heads east towards the GoA and cuts any cross polar flow...It also lower the heights north of the W Coast ridge, which can only build east

 

[bubba hotep]

Yes, it's a complicated setup, but if you want to simplify it to a key player, keep your eyes on the strength and septentrional build of the ridge in the NW Pac. The reason is two fold:

 

1. The strength of said ridge is important, but it's more critical the northern build of the ridge, as this ridge is the one that some of the previous runs had build into extreme NE Siberia into Alaska. I can't stress enough how important is this ridge for cross polar flows...Runs that had it built and cojoin the W Coast ridge had 1060+mb surface highs.
2. This ridge helps strengthen the trough that goes from just north of Hawaii to the Aleutians. A piece of this trough is forecasted to split and head to the Gulf of Alaska...if it get's there it undercuts and effectively blocks the union of the NW Pac ridge and the W Coast ridge...cutting the flow of arctic air, flattening the W coast ridge which can only build east, instead of north. But if the NW Pac ridge can build into Alaska, that would block that piece of energy to set up shop in the GoA and even retrograde west, strengthening the Aleutian low.

I can't upload images now, so this are a bit time sensitive. The first image shows what happens when the NW Pac ridge builds into Alaska. Check that the low is kept outside the GoA, the W Coast ridge builds mostly NE and merges with the NW Pac ridge.

 

 

 

OTOH, if the NW Pac doesn't extend into AK, the low heads east towards the GoA and cuts any cross polar flow...It also lower the heights north of the W Coast ridge, which can only build east

 

 

 

This seems to really be tripping the models up, which is not surprising but is certainly frustrating for those of us sitting downstream.

 

ETA: Great post!  

[Quixotic1]

FWD had in their AFD that there were initialization problems a couple of days ago that took a few runs to filter out. They seemed to think that the more recent runs have a much better handle on it.

[vwgrrc]

FWD had in their AFD that there were initialization problems a couple of days ago that took a few runs to filter out. They seemed to think that the more recent runs have a much better handle on it.

So they filtered out the the AFD talking about wintry next weekend? Bad...

[DFWWeather]

Well, it looks like next weekend is falling apart, unless you buy the outlier CMC. Beyond that winter prospects are looking bleak for Texas. This is turning out to be a sucky winter that had so much potential...

 

Another year goes by with DFW failing to reach the single digits. 18 years and counting, longest stretch in our history. This should happen 1 out every 4 years with subzero lows occurring 1 out of every 25 years (per weather records). I guess we are just going to have to wait until the AMO flips to colder.

[Roy]

Yeah, very little time for anything to develop now. After next week, spring is on the horizon not too far behind. Awful. Snow...the only good thing about West Texas. I may have to get a home snow machine for next winter almost.

[bubba hotep]

Well, it looks like next weekend is falling apart, unless you buy the outlier CMC. Beyond that winter prospects are looking bleak for Texas. This is turning out to be a sucky winter that had so much potential...

Another year goes by with DFW failing to reach the single digits. 18 years and counting, longest stretch in our history. This should happen 1 out every 4 years with subzero lows occurring 1 out of every 25 years (per weather records). I guess we are just going to have to wait until the AMO flips to colder.

The model trends have been discouraging for sure and the long range signals look pretty much like crap. I'm losing faith that February will be an improvement with the -EPO abandoning us I'm starting to fear something like February '87.

[Portastorm]

There hasn't been more than a half inch of snow in Austin since 2004 ... 11 years now.  At least you Metroplexers have had that in the last few years.

[Quixotic1]

There hasn't been more than a half inch of snow in Austin since 2004 ... 11 years now. At least you Metroplexers have had that in the last few years.

Not even in 2009 - 10

[Srain]

The Euro and GEFS ensemble mean are beginning to suggest that we may see a return to 'cooler weather' as the pesky Gulf of Alaska upper low weakens and drift W and a rather deep trough develops across the Inter Mountain West into the Plains. Temperature anomalies across our source Regions of Eastern Alaska and Western Canada begin to turn rather chilly again suggesting there may be some potential of winter making a return to our part of the world in the medium to long range. We will see.

 

 

[DFWWeather]

The Euro and GEFS ensemble mean are beginning to suggest that we may see a return to 'cooler weather' as the pesky Gulf of Alaska upper low weakens and drift W and a rather deep trough develops across the Inter Mountain West into the Plains. Temperature anomalies across our source Regions of Eastern Alaska and Western Canada begin to turn rather chilly again suggesting there may be some potential of winter making a return to our part of the world in the medium to long range. We will see.

 

01272015 00Z Euro Ensemble Mean ecmwf-ens_z500a_namer_9.png

 

01272015 00Z GEFS 192 gfs-ens_z500a_namer_33.png

 

Not buying into the hype this time. Signals look meager at best for this to happen. The ECMWF has just been crap this winter IMHO (and I love this model). Perfect example is the current northeast blizzard. New GFS way out performed the ECMFW.

[wxmx]

Actually signals are strongish wrt cold coming back with a vengeance. Most models have temps <-40C in Canada with a large surface area with temps <-30C...some of the strongest low anomalies I have seen for such a large area...obviously the -EPO has to come to fruition. The models that build the -EPO ridge and have a West coast ridge, have arctic outbreaks as far south as MX. Of course, this is the medium range, so this has to been taken as is for now.

 

OTOH, there's a small chance there's winter precip around my backyard. It's almost a done deal that the ULL/trough will do it's dirty work fairly far south, but so far the cold is unimpressive, even though the 500mb setup has the potential to go colder with just a nip and tuck here and there.

[aggiegeog]

Looks like the models are following a similar pattern to December. They are showing the cold, but initially showed it coming much too soon. I could see it hitting as early as 8-10 days from now though it may be a bit beyond that. With how active the southern stream has been the will be a chance for winter precip with any cold air that makes it down.

[vwgrrc]

Models throw another tease for the next weekend... The other forum starts talking about it now lol.

[Portastorm]

Not even in 2009 - 10

 

Well, technically, I guess we did with 0.6" in late February 2010.  But I remember the event well and most of it was sleet and freezing drizzle with a very light coating of snow on top.  The last few years we seem to be making a claim for Freezing Drizzle Capital of the World or Cold Rain Capital of the World.

[jm1220]

Well, technically, I guess we did with 0.6" in late February 2010.  But I remember the event well and most of it was sleet and freezing drizzle with a very light coating of snow on top.  The last few years we seem to be making a claim for Freezing Drizzle Capital of the World or Cold Rain Capital of the World.

As a newcomer to this area, I must say the weather's been truly amazing besides the few day period of rain we had last week. To me there's nothing worse than cold rain.

[bubba hotep]

In case anyone didn't see the 18z GFS:

 

 

This isn't hard to buy given the 12z Euro and 18z GFS operational runs but they don't seem to have a whole lot of support from the corresponding ensemble runs.

[Quixotic1]

As a newcomer to this area, I must say the weather's been truly amazing besides the few day period of rain we had last week. To me there's nothing worse than cold rain.

Saw a few snowflakes mixing in when I was there Friday morning. Saw even more in eastern PA yesterday.

[Quixotic1]

Well, technically, I guess we did with 0.6" in late February 2010. But I remember the event well and most of it was sleet and freezing drizzle with a very light coating of snow on top. The last few years we seem to be making a claim for Freezing Drizzle Capital of the World or Cold Rain Capital of the World.

Yeah, as we rarely have straight snow events, wintry precip all gets lumped together as the transition gets blurry. Our event last December ('13) was mostly sleet but ended with snow grains. Hard to differentiate sometimes.

[vwgrrc]

In case anyone didn't see the 18z GFS:

 

 

This isn't hard to buy given the 12z Euro and 18z GFS operational runs but they don't seem to have a whole lot of support from the corresponding ensemble runs.

Yeah, 10 days away!

[vwgrrc]

And... Gone!

[bubba hotep]

The 6z GFS actually seems like a reasonable outcome with energy diving down the backside of the trough and bringing a quick hitter of snow to the DFW area.

[Srain]

It looks like a shot of cold air may settle S into the Plains and our Region mid next week. Currently as of this morning temperatures are in the -50's in Eastern Alaska to the -40's in NW Canada. While the 'coldest' air appears to be off to our N and E, it will be a far cry from the warm weather we are currently experiencing.

 

 

 

 

[wxmx]

Will the polar jet be involved with this weekend cold outbreak, or will it be mainly a subtropical jet show? The former would make some people in our region happy...the latter is just cold rain. So far the odds favor the subtropical jet predominance scenario, but models are having a hard time figuring it out, flip flopping every day.

[Portastorm]

Man, I really thought back in the fall that this winter had good "promise" for us in the Southern Plains.  To date it has been an absolute clunker.  Figure we have about six weeks of possibility left before climatology takes over and squelches any hopes. 

[Srain]

It appears another healthy dump of snow is likely across the higher terrain of New Mexico into the Eastern Plains of the Land of Enchantment extending E into the Panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. Across the warm sector, 1 to 2,inches of rain with some isolated storms across the Permian Basin into the Hill Country as the Baja upper low meanders E over the weekend into early next week. The first cold front arrives tonight into tomorrow ending the Spring like weather. It has been nice to get a break from the chilly and dreary weather that set in right after Christmas.

[Quixotic1]

It's been a bad one, particularly with the expectations.  It's aggravating that some hypesters are still talking about what a snowy cold winter this was/is going to be.  Despite the recent storm in NE, most of the country has experienced a huge dud.  If anybody has a post mortem, I'd be interested to hear it.  Like Don said in the main forum, there are a lot of big time names out there that will be taking a hard look at their theories after this one.  New England might be able to get away with a positive NAO/AO/EPO, but the rest of us need blocking for at least one of them.     

[jm1220]

Saw a few snowflakes mixing in when I was there Friday morning. Saw even more in eastern PA yesterday.

I saw a few as well near my office west of downtown.