December-Wet/Stormy New Years Eve Ahead

[MontgomeryCoWx]

I'm hoping for a couple weeks this winter of 15-23 degree weather and highs in the low to mid 30s. That would be perfect for me.

Then the rest of you can have your disgusting hell called Spring & Summer around here.

[Belmer]

The 18z GFS puts a huge storm system in the 117-141 hour range in the NW. Talk about measuring snow in feet.
Also looks like New Mexico will see a nice cover of snow as the U/L digs south this weekend. Not that any of those two things I mentioned have anything to do with Houston weather, but if you haven't noticed, I like to mention the "s" word a lot hoping it will surprise us this winter. I can only wish, right?

Wait... if I mention it and hope for it, then it won't happen. Isn't that how it works? Bad luck? No? Yes? Ahhh! I need sleep. Just four more days of finals and I'm going to lay in bed for two days straight and pretend it's cold outside while I play Christmas music and watch Christmas movies and act as if another arctic blast is on the way that will shut down Houston again since no one can drive in Winter weather.

Okay, cheers everyone! Off to study some more.

[MontgomeryCoWx]

I'm hoping for a couple weeks this winter of 15-23 degree weather and highs in the low to mid 30s. That would be perfect for me.

Then the rest of you can have your disgusting hell called Spring & Summer around here.

What do you have against palm trees, not to mention the grapefruit trees in my wife's uncle's backyard?

Dallas is just a little over 3 hours away. Not that their Summers are any better. BUt you want unpleasantly cold Winter weather...

And, just as importantly, a week or two of 20ºF weather would mean an extra chilly Northwest Gulf, and guarantee low clouds below the cap, which would never break because we were socked in all day, when strong storms in April and May pull air from the BoC and Caribbean. We'd wind up almost with a coastal California climate, even drier, in the Spring months. And it'd still be plenty hot and humid by late June. And the Gulf offshore Texas would still support hurricanes during the heart of the season.

It would help the fire ant problem...


/do I take things too seriously?

And the mosquito problem! Look, I like storms, but I like cold weather more.... just my preference. I live in the Houston Area (Montgomery County actually) because of the financial opportunities provided and the fact its 75-80 miles from SEC Football and Johnny Heisman, certainly not for the weather.

If our family didn't have an extreme obsession for A&M and LSU Football, we'd live in Colorado or Montana.

While I hated Ohio as a whole, my grad school days at Ohio State were enjoyable weather wise due to the fact that we had 4 seasons up there.... and we still had severe weather and funderstorms.

[srainhoutx]

The 12Z operational GFS has trended toward what the overnight Euro operational and its ensembles suggested. A potent 500mb upper low develops a Winter Storm crossing the Southern Rockies/Southern Plains as the upper low closes off and becomes cold cored. The warm sector suggests a severe potential next Monday into Tuesday while in the cold sector more wintry mischief may be lurking. In fact as the upper low moves E, a full blown Deep S Blizzard develops.

Looking further ahead via the GFS, the very progressive pattern continues and the GFS is sniffing some mighty chilly air spilling S into the Plains extending well S along the Gulf Coast as a very cold Canadian High Pressure Ridge drops S and a strong blocking pattern keeps a suppressed Southern Storm Track near the Christmas Holidays. We will see.

[skidog40]

whats the green popping on radar and will that be around tonight. cloud cover moving in

[skidog40]

The gulf effect _ _ _ _

[wxman57]

whats the green popping on radar and will that be around tonight. cloud cover moving in

False returns, it appears. That deepening trof is starting to move across our area now. Should keep us in the clouds through late this evening.

[jeff]

KIAH did reach 32 this morning.....

[srainhoutx]

It appears the guidance is converging on a wet Friday night into Saturday. The short term meso guidance as well as the operational global models are suggesting showers and storms are likely as the second in a series of upper air disturbances and a Pacific front moves across the region.

[Ptarmigan]

OT- is the freezing point of water exactly 32.000000000 ºF? And why I am now thinking of p-chem classes and freezing point depression and why a good margarita will have frost, not dew, on the outside of the glass...

I have seen water that is still water despite being at or below 32ºF. The water in that case was pure with not dust or contaminant. The same kind of super cooled water that help bring down Air France Flight 447 over the South Atlantic on June 1, 2009 after the super cooled water came in contact with pitot tubes.

The absolute temperature for water to freeze is -55ºF or -48ºC. 32ºF occurs if the water has contaminants like dust and under normal atmospheric pressure on the surface.

Water's Ultimate Freezing Point
http://news.discovery.com/earth/coldest ... 11123.html

[Ptarmigan]

It appears the guidance is converging on a wet Friday night into Saturday. The short term meso guidance as well as the operational global models are suggesting showers and storms are likely as the second in a series of upper air disturbances and a Pacific front moves across the region.

Hope it rains for real.

[Ptarmigan]

I'm aware of subcooled water droplets, I was actually asking if 32.00000 was the actual 'normal' freezing point of ordinary water. I know 0ºC is freezing, and 100º is boiling at standard pressure, because that is how the system was devised, but since Farenheit was based on 0ºF being the coldest day some German named Farenheit ever experienced and 100ºF being the hottest, I was wondering if it might not be 31.987ºF or something...

I am pretty sure it is 32ºF.

[biggerbyte]

Wow! I seem to be having some strange problems with the forum, Srain. Can you help me?

Doug Delony, KHOU11 Web & Social Media Producer has been working very hard the past couple of weeks and we have completed a major platform upgrade. There are some changes and more are likely to come as we continue to make improvements in the platform. Take a little time and look over the new features and were they are located and everything should become easier. We had to make these changes due to the platform being extremely out of date and now the board has been fully backed up on a separate operating system and a 'test board' created so we can continue to test and make improvements and add features. Hopefully this will help. Our little weather community has grown so much and become so active and monitored well beyond the 'local' area, these changes needed to happen as we have become a more regional weather board. This was the plan that Dan and I envisioned back in February 2010 when we received this new platform. Dan had dreamed of a more regional board that spread beyond SE TX and we have been moving in that direction for some time. We are on a dedicated server with increased load capacity. A special thanks to the good folks at KHOU for understanding our needs and desires as a community and helping with all the technical and most of all the money. The dedicated server expense per month is not cheap. A lot has been going on 'behind the scenes' over the past 6-7 months to make our board a First Class Weather Forum Community.

Thanks, but this issue does not appear to be related to any upgrades.

[jcarr]

What kind of problems?

[biggerbyte]

Well it is looking less likely that the 20s being forecasted for tonight will actually come to fruition. Funny how quickly things can change. Last night things looked very chilly. Not to suggest that 30s is warm.

[C2G]

Glad there's a chance of rain soon, otherwise this weather would be downright boring.

[gocuse22]

Current temp holding near 45....I expect a low around 34-35 tonight.

[srainhoutx]

Temps at my location have dipped to a chilly 30 degrees so far this early morning. The overnight guidance has come in a bit better agreement suggesting a potentially wet and soggy weekend as a trough to our W moves into Texas and moisture returns off the Gulf. A Pacific front will drop SE across Texas and now appears to want to stall somewhere across the Coast. The fly in the ointment will be several embedded short waves riding up from the SW that has a potential to bring showers/storms with perhaps some heavy rainfall that may well last until Sunday. That said knowing that a lot of the region has been lacking in the rainfall department, it is probably wise to not get too aggressive forecasting a heavy rainfall event, but should the trends continue and the front pulls up stationary as the guidance suggests, some spots could see 1-2 inch amounts with isolated higher totals under strong storms. Fingers crossed. We need the rain.

[Katdaddy]

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HOUSTON/GALVESTON TX
525 AM CST WED DEC 12 2012

.AVIATION...
VFR AND SKC. WINDS NORTHEAST AND INCREASING TO 5-7 KNOTS
TODAY...BECOMING LIGHT TONIGHT...THEN EAST AT 5-7 KNOTS
TOMORROW MORNING. WIND SPEEDS A LITTLE HIGHER AT THE COAST. 42
&&

.PREV DISCUSSION... /ISSUED 307 AM CST WED DEC 12 2012/

DISCUSSION...
RIDGING OVER EAST TEXAS WILL KEEP IT COOL AND SUNNY TODAY ACROSS
THE REGION. THE RIDGE WILL GRADUALLY SLIDE EAST THE REMAINDER OF
THE WORK WEEK WITH A SLOW WARMING TREND...AND INCREASING MOISTURE
AS FLOW BECOMES EAST AND SOUTHEAST. AN UPPER TROUGH OVER SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA THURSDAY WILL SHEAR OUT WITH A SECOND DIGGING INTO
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA SATURDAY. THE FIRST WAVE LIFTS OUT BRINGING A
WARM FRONT UP INTO SETX FRIDAY MORNING AND INCREASING RAIN
CHANCES OVER THE WESTERN AREAS LATE FRIDAY AND SATURDAY. A WEAK
PACIFIC COLD FRONT WITH THE WAVE MOVES INTO CENTRAL TEXAS SATURDAY
MORNING AND SHOULD REACH SETX SATURDAY EVENING BEFORE STALLING
POSSIBLY NEAR THE COAST BUT WITH THE AFOREMENTIONED SECOND WAVE AM
LEANING TOWARD THE WETTER AND WARMER PATTERN FOR THE WEEKEND WITH
A GOOD CHANCE FOR SHRA/TSRA SATURDAY. THE EXTENDED MODELS OF
COURSE DIFFER ON SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY WITH THE TREND THAT THE
BOUNDARY GETS ACTIVE AGAIN SUNDAY AS A SERIES OF S/W IN THE FAST
SOUTHWEST FLOW TRACK THROUGH SETX ALONG THE BOUNDARY. SO HAVE
ADDED BACK IN POPS FOR SUNDAY AND THESE MAY NEED INCREASING IF
THIS PATTERN/FRONTAL POSITION PANS OUT. THE REGION MAY EVEN HAVE
A WINDOW OF 36 HOURS SATURDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH SUNDAY FOR SOME
HEAVY RAINFALL (HOPEFULLY THIS DIDN`T JINX IT) WITH THE STALLED
BOUNDARY AND THE SERIES OF S/W WITH RICH MOISTURE STACKED UP ALONG
THE STATIONARY FRONT. OF COURSE THE MODELS HAVE BEEN ALL OVER THE
PLACE AND THIS INTRODUCES SOME UNCERTAINTY TO SAY THE LEAST FOR
THE LATER HALF OF THE WEEKEND WITH NOT ONLY POPS BUT ALSO THE
TEMPERATURES AND HAVE TRIED TO BLEND THE ECMWF/GFS GUIDANCE BUT
LARGE BUSTS COULD OCCUR WITH FRONTAL POSITION/CLOUDS/FOG/RAINFALL
ESPECIALLY ON SUNDAY. THE SECOND TROUGH FINALLY SWINGS THROUGH
LATE MONDAY/TUESDAY WHICH SHOULD DRY THE AREA WITH `WARM`
DOWNSLOPE PACIFIC AIRMASS SPREADING THROUGH SETX BUT LOWER MINS.

[srainhoutx]

Morning e-mail from Jeff:

Freeze ongoing across most of the area again this morning except for the urban heat cores and along the water front. Temperatures thus far are nearly equal to yesterday morning in most rural locations and running 1-2 degrees warmer in the urban heat centers. This will be the last morning of freezing temperatures, although a light freeze will be possible again tonight over our NE counties. Large polar high that has brought the cold weather will be shifting eastward as the next storm system digs down the US west coast and into the SW US by the end of the week. Light ENE winds will become east today and then SE on Thursday which will begin the return of low level moisture to the area. This past front while fairly strong, did not penetrate through the entire Gulf of Mexico, and a plume of deep moisture is in place over the southern Gulf with satellite derived PWs of 1.3-1.5 inches down around the Yucatan. As winds turn out of the SE this moisture will begin to move NW toward the lower TX coast as a warm front develops on Thursday.

Approaching storm system over the SW US will eject into the southern plains on Friday with a warm front moving northward into SE TX during the day. GFS shows a fairly robust surge on moisture late Friday into the area and while this seems at least possible, it may be overdoing the moisture return. Even so, expect scattered showers to develop in the afternoon with a strong southern branch jet stream overhead, a northward moving boundary, and increasing warm air advection. Area should fall into the warm sector by Friday night with muggy 60 degree dewpoints pushing inland ahead of a weak front moving into central TX on Saturday morning.

Latest guidance suggest the initial storm system will move off to the NE allowing its associated cold front to slow and stall across SE TX on Saturday afternoon. Previous model runs were suggesting this boundary would at least push into the offshore waters before stalling, and this is still possible. With the boundary stalling now either near the coast or possibly inland and with a noisy sub-tropical jet overhead with a series of impulse, rain chances will be continued in Sunday. In fact with the stalling boundary, good moisture pooling, and favorable lift from passing disturbances aloft, there is some potential for training rainfall this weekend. Looks like some decent rainfall amounts especially over the coastal and central counties from Friday through Sunday if the boundary does not push too far offshore.

Next upper level storm will swing through the southern plains on Monday and bring a stronger cold front through the area on Tuesday. This boundary should be able to push well into the Gulf of Mexico with much drier air and clearing/cooling in the post frontal air mass.

Cold temperatures today and again early Thursday will be replaced with lows in the 60’s and highs in the upper 70’s over the weekend.