December: New Years Eve Outlook

[Paul Robison]

Besides 1983 and 1989, there was another arctic blast / ice event....can't pin point the year.......it had been cold and rainy, I stepped outside to go visit my neighbor downstairs and steps were iced over....went to bed that night, heard transformer blow and several hours later, everything was covered in ice. I was working so it was after 1989

That was 1997 in Houston

It was the January 1997 freeze. January 1997 started quite warm with highs of 80 on January 3, 1997. Freezing rain fell January 12-14, 1997.

That's what I'm trying to get some opinions on! Will we be covered in ice? Will I hear a transformer (mine) blow, leave me in the dark for I-dunno-how-many days? In short----is the GFS homing in on another event like January 12-14 1997?!

[MontgomeryCoWx]

Oh GFS, you schizo dingbat... From 60s back to frigid. Tomorrow it will be 80.

Anyone seeing the massive High in Canada slipping down the Rockies into central CO?

[Baseballdude2915]

Wow, GFS is back into the upper teens/low 20s for a few mornings. Of course the majority of this board knows its all just fun to watch at this point, but those TV mets hinted too soon to the public, going to be fun watching them explain the inconsistency to the average person following their facebook posts.

[MontgomeryCoWx]

-57 in North Dakota... LOL

[MontgomeryCoWx]

If you hate cold don't look at hours 216-300

[Baseballdude2915]

-57 in North Dakota... LOL

Lol -7 in AMARILLO

[srainhoutx]

The forecast today and over night will bring a chance of showers as the upper low currently over Arizona moves E and moves across our Region followed by a cold front that will bring sub freezing/near sub freezing temperatures Sunday and Monday morning before we finally see some slow moderation to some what normal temperatures and hopefully some sunshine into mid next week. Then major changes are ahead and the much debated and talked about Arctic plunge begins to knock on our door step.

As we witnessed with the 18Z suite of the operational GFS yesterday, the American computer models once again flipped to a much colder solution. As seen by the overnight discussions, that theme continued with the 00Z suite of Global operational and ensemble guidance. Again, there is still a lot of uncertainty regarding just how cold we will get and how much moisture, if any will be in place after Arctic cold front arrives. As is typical with Arctic air masses, the computer models tend to struggle or be too slow depicting its arrival. Currently the guidance is suggesting by next Thursday into Friday that Arctic front will be arriving across the Northern half of Texas and Oklahoma. Typically the guidance is a good 12-24 hours too slow with the southward progression at this range, so we will continue to monitor over the weekend into early next week the progression of that very cold Arctic air as it pushes South.

Once we get beyond today and if we continue to see the Global Ensembles trend toward the colder solutions, we will begin to ramp up our Christmas forecast discussions and also begin to focus on winter weather preparations in advance of the Busy Christmas Holiday Period. That said the indications via the medium and long range ensembles suggest we may well be headed toward a prolonged period of much colder weather that may well extend beyond Christmas Day. Some of the longer range data we look to are suggesting this cold regime arriving around the 20th may extend into the New Year, so stay tuned. The Topic Title will be updated in a day or two to focus attention on what we can expect for the Christmas Holiday time frame.

[Katdaddy]

Some light to moderate rains across Central and NTX this morning. Rain chances lowered to 40-50% across SE TX this afternoon and night. Models continue to advertise a strong Arctic blast next weekend. This will be a Winter weather prep weekend……I feel like I am tracking a CAT 3 in the Caribbean Sea that is headed toward the NW GOM and TX Coast.

[cperk]

Wow, GFS is back into the upper teens/low 20s for a few mornings. Of course the majority of this board knows its all just fun to watch at this point, but those TV mets hinted too soon to the public, going to be fun watching them explain the inconsistency to the average person following their facebook posts.

I appreciated the heads up from the local mets, If you've been on a weather forum for a only a little while you should know how inconsistent models can be this far out. I've already made a few preparations.

[srainhoutx]

The 06Z GFS will raise a lot of eyebrows and likely lead to some interesting discussions. It certainly will lead to some chatter...

[cperk]

The 06Z GFS will raise a lot of eyebrows and likely lead to some interesting discussions. It certainly will lead to some chatter...

Care to elaborate.

[srainhoutx]

The anomalies are suggesting -20 to -30 departures -vs- climatology across ALL of Texas including the Rio Grande Valley extending further S into Mexico just beyond the 192 hour mark.

[MontgomeryCoWx]

Some light to moderate rains across Central and NTX this morning. Rain chances lowered to 40-50% across SE TX this afternoon and night. Models continue to advertise a strong Arctic blast next weekend. This will be a Winter weather prep weekend……I feel like I am tracking a CAT 3 in the Caribbean Sea that is headed toward the NW GOM and TX Coast.

This has a Ike/Rita feel to it. I agree.

[jasons2k]

Wow, GFS is back into the upper teens/low 20s for a few mornings. Of course the majority of this board knows its all just fun to watch at this point, but those TV mets hinted too soon to the public, going to be fun watching them explain the inconsistency to the average person following their facebook posts.

And why would that be "fun"? Do you enjoy others' misery or something? Do you think you would do a better job?

This is a very challenging forecast with lots of implications. The pattern points to historical-like cold but that's not something you forecast, unless/until you are absolutely certain. In the meantime, millions of inquiring minds want to know what's going to happen, and the vast majority of those people don't understand the nuances of modeling, physics, etc. Right now it's a pressure cooker.

I don't envy their position at all, and I certainty wouldn't say it's "fun" to watch a professional explain a very complex situation to an audience of simpletons (when it comes to weather/science).

As you can tell, I've been quietly lurking, but this set me off. I think people, especially those who frequent this board and should know better, need to give the pro-mets some latitude and let them do their jobs.

[srainhoutx]

Morning Update From Jeff:

Old arctic high pressure cell that has been around for over a week now is finally beginning to erode and move eastward this morning.

A storm system over the SW US will eject into TX today and with increasing low level moisture off the western Gulf of Mexico expect to see light rain develop and increase fairly quickly after noon from west to east across the region. Surface warm front over the northern Gulf waters will move northward and may reach the coastal counties from Victoria to High Island this evening allowing 60 degree dewpoints to push over the “chilled” nearshore waters in the upper 40’s. This will potential create a dense sea fog bank right along the coast. Most areas will hold in the 50’s yet again today, but a few coastal locations could push above 60 if the warm front passes onshore. Rain chances should end fairly quickly late tonight as moisture is swept eastward by the storm system and the next cold front pushes across the region. Rainfall amounts will average generally less than .25 of an inch south of I-10 and .25 to.50 of an inch north of I-10.

Front will move offshore on Saturday with cold air advection returning. Moisture looks to become trapped in the lower levels and this may result in clouds linger much of the day on Saturday and possibly into Sunday morning as many times it is hard to scour out that frontal inversion saturation level. Temperatures will fall back into the 50’s both Saturday and Sunday with lows by Monday morning under clear skies, calm winds, and low dewpoints falling to near freezing.

A longer term warm up begins by Tuesday of next week as established southerly winds return to the region with lows climbing into the 50’s by late next week and highs possibly pushing the mid to upper 70’s. Will likely see a sea fog threat return at some point after Tuesday as dewpoints begin to rise above nearshore water temperatures once again…something we will be dealing with for weeks to come with such cold nearshore temperatures.

Dec 21-26:

Upper air pattern will undergo significant amplification along the US west coast with upper level high pressure building northward deep into Alaska and possibly northern Siberia. Global forecast models show heights rising into the 2-3 standard deviations above normal in this region by the middle of next week. Additionally, the water temperatures in the northern Pacific Ocean are some of the warmest in recent decades (nearing some historical values) and this warm pool in the region south of the Gulf of Alaska tends to favor not only building high pressure in this region, but larger and stronger high pressures cells. Upper level high pressure development in this region helps to foster a strong downstream trough over Canada and the US and its intensity/depth is dependent on the intensity of the ridging over Alaska…so the stronger the Alaskan ridge the deeper the downstream US trough.

All of the major global forecast models show a pattern of varying degrees of building high pressure along the US west coast deep into Alaska and potentially northern Russia by the middle to end of next week. This pattern also allows the formation of intense surface high pressure cells over NW Canada promoting the development of a pool of bitter cold air as this area is currently experiencing near zero sunshine. This cold air pool has yet to fully develop and that is why forecast models are having such a hard time determining how cold it is going to get the week of Christmas.

The pattern will certainly favor an arctic air outbreak into the US by the weekend of the 21st, but how cold and how long remain viable questions this morning. With model guidance now so widely available on the internet one must be cautious to avoid believing each model run and the “extreme” numbers that at times can be shown and have been shown over the past 3-4 days. The area to watch over the coming days will be northern Russia into NW Canada and eastern Alaska in the Sunday-Tuesday time period to see how cold the air mass in the source region becomes and if surface pressures build to the forecasted values being shown (1050-1060mb). Surface air temperatures in this region are already running in the -25F to -40F range this morning. This will be much of the focus for the next several days leading into Christmas week.

[wxman57]

Models continue to advertise a major Arctic outbreak across the U.S. next week, with the cold air arriving here in Houston BY Saturday the 21st. Though I don't think the models have a great handle on just how cold it might get here, it's fun to follow the temperature forecasts for Christmas week. Take a look at the two meteograms from last night's GFS run. Note on the first plot (00Z - 6pm last evening) that I had to adjust the temperature scale to be wider than on the midnight run (06Z = 12AM today) as the GFS is forecasting dew points (green line) down to -18F. I don't think I've ever seen such dew points in Houston.

Anyway you slice it, Christmas week is looking way too cold for me. Could have a day or two with highs not topping freezing. Going to Home Depot this weekend to pick up some hose bib covers and pipe wrap and check the insulation over the pipes in the attic.

[TexasMetBlake]

After a loooooooooooooooong hiatus, I'm back L&G's! Hope everybody had a great Christmas, safe New Years, a great time on their summer vacations, a happy Halloween, a happy Thanksgiving and now we arrive at Christmas...

Talking with some collegues, it's hard to wrap your mind around outbreaks like this because they really border on the edge of reality. While it certainly has happened before and will happen again in the future, witnessing a high pressure cell of1053mb in CO and a 1044 in Texas (per 00z GFS awips) is something we observe only a few times in a life time. I'm still holding my breath and not ready to bite off on such an extreme event in Houston----yet.

Looking at the 216 hour forecast for North Dakota, the forecast temps there are comical. We're talking temps approaching -60°F for lows. I'm sorry, I just don't believe that. This is the time I hit the side of my computer and say ''this thing must be frozen!" Ba dum dum!

I agree with Steve. I think the front plows through Houston ahead of schedule. I say the front will probably arrive 8 to 12 hours ahead of what the models say due to the momentum and strength of the cold air.

It's a precarious situation because you don't want to sound the alarm but with people going out of town, they need to be ready. Last time we had a significant freeze (1989), pipes broke in just about every house in Houston I think.

[srainhoutx]

The 12Z GFS Suggests a 1034mb Arctic High Pressure cell settling over Colorado on the 20th to 21st.

[wxman57]

12Z GFS says "never mind, it won't get that cold in Texas". Just a light freeze down to Houston. I like those mid 70s next Saturday. Unfortunately, it's just lost the cold air again. I'm sure future runs will indicate much colder temps.

[Baseballdude2915]

Wow, GFS is back into the upper teens/low 20s for a few mornings. Of course the majority of this board knows its all just fun to watch at this point, but those TV mets hinted too soon to the public, going to be fun watching them explain the inconsistency to the average person following their facebook posts.

And why would that be "fun"? Do you enjoy others' misery or something? Do you think you would do a better job?

This is a very challenging forecast with lots of implications. The pattern points to historical-like cold but that's not something you forecast, unless/until you are absolutely certain. In the meantime, millions of inquiring minds want to know what's going to happen, and the vast majority of those people don't understand the nuances of modeling, physics, etc. Right now it's a pressure cooker.

I don't envy their position at all, and I certainty wouldn't say it's "fun" to watch a professional explain a very complex situation to an audience of simpletons (when it comes to weather/science).

As you can tell, I've been quietly lurking, but this set me off. I think people, especially those who frequent this board and should know better, need to give the pro-mets some latitude and let them do their jobs.

Jasons, certainly see what you mean, did not mean to set you or anyone off. I respect their job and it is a very difficult one. The core of what I meant was, that it was WAYYY to soon imo for anyone in the public eye to throw out possible low temp numbers. Pretty much any thing is possible after 190 hours or so. I've overheard about 10 people say "did you hear its going to be like 16 on Christmas!?". Not to mention the online buzz created by that. Thats what is entertaining to me is what these same people go back with huge confusion and backlash when it changes/doesnt verify. In this day and age, people grab the most important bit of information from whatever it is they read and go with it. They didnt see the "models, uncertainty, etc" bit they just saw numbers like 16/teens. I personally think that nothing more than "possible record breaking, prolonged freeze around Christmas time, so ensure your winter prep kit is prepared" should be mentioned at this point. Mainly, im referencing the social media side of this whole debacle. Then again, Im just a marketing major still in college and not a professional met with 10+ years experience.

But lets not debate over what should/shouldnt be said, luckily its not our job. Back to regulary scheduled programming with the 12z rolling out now