August 2022

[Waded]

I get frustration with weather forecasts. It's super common. Google "weather rock." What can really burn me out is the forecasts regarding tropical cyclones. I remember a few years ago a big hurricane was forecasted to hit SETX, evacuations were started, I was mobilized to do 12-hour night shifts, and then the storm went into LA. My life and the life of many others experienced significant disruptions, and we didn't even get any rain.

But with these type of more minor forecasts, I can am much more blasé. Jeff did say in one of his emails that the confidence of rain was high, but the confidence in the location and amounts of rain was low. I've gotten zero inches of rain here near Nassau Bay in the last 24 hours. .020 inches in the last two days. But I'm not sweating it. Houston is not arguably the flood capital of the US because it doesn't rain. It will come.

[869MB]

Honestly, from ABC13 to Space City Weather, all these forecasters just suck. All you see is lipservice and flimsy ad hoc justifications, there's no real substance at all.

NWS discussion tends to be the most informative. But even there, some of the same faults can occur, as seen in @Cromagnum's above screenshot.

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX
251 PM CDT Tue Aug 23 2022

...New SYNOPSIS, SHORT TERM, LONG TERM, MARINE...

.SYNOPSIS...
Issued at 250 PM CDT Tue Aug 23 2022

We've pushed deep enough into our messy week to gain at least some
clarity on the rainfall situation for the rest of the week.
Earlier rains stayed progressive enough that, outside of a couple
isolated instances, flooding did not become a concern. And though
the front has stalled over our area, it is becoming weak and
diffuse enough that without the earlier rain creating an area more
susceptible to flooding, we've been able to cancel the flood
watch we had in place.

That's not to say the rest of the week is dry - we're definitely
going to continue to see dreary, rainy conditions through the rest
of the week. In fact, the strongest storms could still cause very
isolated flooding issues if they happen to occur over spots known
to flood easily. It's more that this type of threat is not much
different from the typical, baseline flooding threat we see from
storm development in this area. So, bright side, the potential for
a concentrated, elevated flooding threat is much diminished. Down
side, this is still Southeast Texas and things can still escalate
quickly in localized spots when storms happen.

&&

.SHORT TERM...
(This evening through Wednesday Night)
Issued at 250 PM CDT Tue Aug 23 2022

Welp, that flood watch turned out to be an awful forecast by me.
Don't get me wrong - if I'm going to bust, I'd rather have put out
a watch and not needed it than to have skipped the watch and wish
I had issued one. But I'd really much rather have just made the
right forecast in the first place.

One thing I was right about was to be suspicious of the model
guidance on a situation so driven by mesoscale influences. It just
turns out I mistrusted in the wrong direction. Rather than bog
down and stall out over our north, yesterday's storms appeared to
stay progressive enough to shove right on through to the coastal
plain, keeping rainfall amounts manageable for all but a handful
of spots for which flood advisories were issued.

So, from here on out...I'm going to remain suspicious of the model
guidance, particularly the deterministic stuff. Ultimately, we
still have an environment that should support continued periods of
shower and storm development. We've got 2+ inches of precipitable
water, a stalled out boundary, and some inflow from the Gulf to
continue the moisture supply. But...that inflow is a little
veered, so probably not as efficient as it could be. Plenty of
cloud cover will probably hold back boundary layer heating, which
may limit instability somewhat. And, really, the vertical
structure of the atmosphere from boundary layer to upper levels
don't look particularly exceptional for supporting lift. It is
definitely a mixed bag for supporting stronger storms and high
rain rates...and once we removed training/slow moving storms from
the equation, I really do think we find ourselves back closer to
the baseline threat level of flooding rain for the area (I just
hope I haven't swung back too far the other direction in my
thinking and am missing some mesoscale feature that could promote
flooding).

[Dls2010r]

There scientists. I totally respect Jeff. I like Matt too. My favorite is Dr. Neil Frank.

Give them a break.

[Cpv17]

There scientists. I totally respect Jeff. I like Matt too. My favorite is Dr. Neil Frank.

Give them a break.

Personally, my favorite is David Paul.

[user:null]

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX
251 PM CDT Tue Aug 23 2022

[snip]

The forecast update was not posted at the time that I made my initial comment. But, yes, as you can see, that's exactly the type of writeup that I consider worthy and respectable for me — I did mention that detailed NWS discussions (and other similarly detailed sources) tended to be the most informative.

But everything else just plain sucks.

[Stratton20]

Cpv17 David Paul is Amazing

[Rip76]

There scientists. I totally respect Jeff. I like Matt too. My favorite is Dr. Neil Frank.

Give them a break.

Personally, my favorite is David Paul.

Same here. It used to be Neil now it’s David Paul.
Or has been for quite some time.

[jasons2k]

Yes….Neil Frank, Harold Taft, Roy Leep, James Spann, Pat Prokop, John Hope…all some of the best OCMs.

Dave Schwartz was always a riot - especially on a late Fri or Sat night.

So it’s 95 degrees here. How is that not unstable enough to kick-off some storms? Unbelievable.

[Cromagnum]

Looks like a whole lot of nothing again today. What a joke.

[davidiowx]

Meso models look pretty bleak as well. Isolated to scattered showers over the next few days. Considering how most of our luck has been, it will be a trace for a few and hot and humid with minimal wind for the rest of us.

[davidiowx]

Yes….Neil Frank, Harold Taft, Roy Leep, James Spann, Pat Prokop, John Hope…all some of the best OCMs.

Dave Schwartz was always a riot - especially on a late Fri or Sat night.

So it’s 95 degrees here. How is that not unstable enough to kick-off some storms? Unbelievable.

Lack of lift with the boundary washing out. There’s still a “spin” but that’s about it. Typical SE Texas luck this year. We will probably get all our rain at once

[jasons2k]

Yes….Neil Frank, Harold Taft, Roy Leep, James Spann, Pat Prokop, John Hope…all some of the best OCMs.

Dave Schwartz was always a riot - especially on a late Fri or Sat night.

So it’s 95 degrees here. How is that not unstable enough to kick-off some storms? Unbelievable.

Lack of lift with the boundary washing out. There’s still a “spin” but that’s about it. Typical SE Texas luck this year. We will probably get all our rain at once

Yes, true, but we were supposed to get a “series of upper level disturbances” to keep things going through Thursday. In typical SE Texas fashion when one ingredient collapses, they all do.

[Cromagnum]

Yes….Neil Frank, Harold Taft, Roy Leep, James Spann, Pat Prokop, John Hope…all some of the best OCMs.

Dave Schwartz was always a riot - especially on a late Fri or Sat night.

So it’s 95 degrees here. How is that not unstable enough to kick-off some storms? Unbelievable.

Lack of lift with the boundary washing out. There’s still a “spin” but that’s about it. Typical SE Texas luck this year. We will probably get all our rain at once

Yep. Likely to get all of it from the summer on opening week of dove season to wash everything out.

[Stratton20]

We really need to watch the GOM next week, both. EPS and the latest GEFS (18z) guidance have some sort of tropical system entering the GOM towards late next week, and the GEFS has quite a few strong members showing a major hurricane, something to keep a close eye on

[Cpv17]

Yes….Neil Frank, Harold Taft, Roy Leep, James Spann, Pat Prokop, John Hope…all some of the best OCMs.

Dave Schwartz was always a riot - especially on a late Fri or Sat night.

So it’s 95 degrees here. How is that not unstable enough to kick-off some storms? Unbelievable.

Lack of lift with the boundary washing out. There’s still a “spin” but that’s about it. Typical SE Texas luck this year. We will probably get all our rain at once

Yep. Likely to get all of it from the summer on opening week of dove season to wash everything out.

I think we’re gonna start seeing the radar fill in more as the evening hours progress into the overnight hours.

[Cpv17]

Pretty good storm getting going just a few miles to my south.

[DoctorMu]

Folks, it's just back to "normal" weather for this time of year. Chance (20-50%) of showers nearly every day. High PW. Warm Gulf inflow. Poisson distribution of rain. The average works out, but there will be significant heterogeneity of rain fall. A remnant front will be a trigger, but mostly, its seabreeze + daytime heating + no longer a ridge or cap.

Compared with this summer, I'm just going to sit back and enjoy! We're days away from college football season.

The tropics have been awfully quiet. They could explode any day now.

[Cpv17]

Just picked up half an inch here!

[Andrew]

We need to keep an eye on the tropics for next week. I don't necessarily buy the fast development the GFS shows across the Eastern Caribbean, but both the EPS and GEFS indicate some sort of tropical wave could make it into the gulf by the middle/late part of next week. Nothing too concerning yet but we are near/at peak hurricane season (especially for this region).

[Scott747]

Well... Mr. iCylone and myself have been half *** chatting about a potential Caribbean system the last day or so that could be in a position to enter the gulf. Now we're both getting even more intrigued.

Go figure it's again the ICON leading the way....

Are you referring to the system the GFS has entering the GOM north of Cuba on 9/1.

Correct. We started casting a wary eye on it a few days back when the ICON was hinting at something. Then it was popping up on the background of the HWRF for 90l. Last night the Euro was showing the energy making it to the NW Caribbean.

Over the last 24 hrs steering in the medium range has started to get progressively more w. Enough that 'if' something were to form the general heading would be to the w or wnw towards either the eastern gulf or the yucatan. Of course tomorrow at this time the mid range steering could completely switch to ots.

Operational GFS has joined all the other guidance with its 6z run and general steering. For now we should ignore the strength of the gfs.

ICON and Euro including ensembles are still rather weak but with similar guidance towards the w and nw Caribbean. I'd guess we'll get an invest inside of 48hrs if guidance continues to suggest something.