[2014] Winter Storm... In Houston?

LonghornFan · Jan 27, 2014

davidio840 said: ↑

It is still hard to tell. You may get .25" of ice with 2" of snow on top of it or just a lot of ice. Here is the WRF Model output. It shows quite the ice storm developing and lasting into Wednesday

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Excellent. This time I will not be coming into work, I'll just work/ignore phone calls from home. I prefer not to ice skate in my car in the road.

DonnyMost · Jan 27, 2014

Cancelled all my plans for Tuesday.

Big fat NOPE to dealing with that crap.

Pull_Up_3 · Jan 27, 2014

went in to work friday

makes the decision to not go in tomorrow much easier

shastarocket · Jan 27, 2014

trigun333 said: ↑

Does this mean that the Rockets game for tomorrow could be canceled depending on weather and also since the rockets have to play the following day in Dallas. Leaving Houston could be dangerous Tuesday night.
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Good point, I'd imagine Tuesday's game may get an early start. Dallas is short hop away, the team could fly in Wed afternoon and be ready.

Dave_78 · Jan 27, 2014

Office closed tomorrow and quite possibly Wednesday too based on the lingering freezing weather keeping the roads nice and icy.

Nook · Jan 27, 2014

Mean while in Chicago..... right now......

-10 degrees with wind chill of -50 degrees....

You get an instant headache within 2 minutes of being outside...

Work cancelled? Nope....

Roads empty? Nope......

Should people live where the weather gets like this?

Nope......

marks0223 · Jan 27, 2014

The forecast models are trending dryer with each run and less of a snow event and more of an ice event again.

Joshfast · Jan 27, 2014

marks0223 said: ↑

The forecast models are trending dryer with each run and less of a snow event and more of an ice event again.
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Stop it. My brain has already accepted tomorrow as a day off.

LonghornFan · Jan 27, 2014

Joshfast said: ↑

Stop it. My brain has already accepted tomorrow as a day off.
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That's why we don't want snow, we want the ice.

REEKO_HTOWN · Jan 27, 2014

Have camping site in Galveston reserved for this coming weekend...if the trend continues it will be gorgeous like Sunday...God willing.

Joshfast · Jan 27, 2014

LonghornFan said: ↑

That's why we don't want snow, we want the ice.
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whoops I didn't read past "The forecast models are trending dryer" before my brain got fussy.

downbytheriver · Jan 27, 2014

Nook said: ↑

Mean while in Chicago..... right now......

-10 degrees with wind chill of -50 degrees....

You get an instant headache within 2 minutes of being outside...

Work cancelled? Nope....

Roads empty? Nope......

Should people live where the weather gets like this?

Nope......
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I don't understand it. Sure the Chicago/Detroit area is nice in the summer time, but dealing with pure misery for 6+ months of the year? Too much indoors time.

davidio840 · Jan 27, 2014

Schools are already starting to close left and right

Latest closings
Cleveland ISD: Closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Classes to resume Thursday.
Tarkington ISD: Closed Tuesday and Wednesday.
Texas City ISD: Closed Tuesday. All extracurricular activities and athletic events set for Tuesday will be rescheduled.
Liberty ISD: Closed Tuesday and Wednesday.
Hitchcock ISD: Closed Tuesday.
Crosby ISD: Closed Tuesday.
Wharton County Junior College: Closed Tuesday.
Devers ISD: Closed Tuesday and Wednesday.
Hull-Daisetta ISD: Closed Tuesday and Wednesday.
Dayton ISD: Closed Tuesday and Wednesday.
Clear Creek ISD: Closed Tuesday.

ItsMyFault · Jan 27, 2014

downbytheriver said: ↑

I don't understand it. Sure the Chicago/Detroit area is nice in the summer time, but dealing with pure misery for 6+ months of the year? Too much indoors time.
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It's never usually this cold. It's been a pretty historic winter for most of the north.

davidio840 · Jan 27, 2014

ItsMyFault said: ↑

It's never usually this cold. It's been a pretty historic winter for most of the north.
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Same can be said for Houston and pretty much all of Texas as well. We are having the coldest January on record right now.

I will agree though. I lived in Chicago for 2 years back in 03-04 and still have friends/family there now. It is brutal in the Winter up there. Especially having to walk to school in that ish. Some of my friends/family there have been telling me they can't even go outside because the wind is so bad.

downbytheriver · Jan 27, 2014

ItsMyFault said: ↑

It's never usually this cold. It's been a pretty historic winter for most of the north.
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Been to northwestern twice from the Chicago area during November and March. It was windy and frigid. Friend who went there said it's like that throughout the winter- wind makes it unbearable.

LAFIRMA22 · Jan 27, 2014

trigun333 said: ↑

Does this mean that the Rockets game for tomorrow could be canceled depending on weather and also since the rockets have to play the following day in Dallas. Leaving Houston could be dangerous Tuesday night.
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they do not play dallas they play san antonio

sammy · Jan 27, 2014

I have tickets to the Rockets game tomm. I wonder if it will be cancelled?

davidio840 · Jan 27, 2014

Well this looks interesting. This is from Jeff Lindner:

***High impact winter storm likely on Tuesday***

Discussion:

Arctic cold front is surging across TX the morning and is currently nearing College Station. Upstream temperatures over north TX have fallen below freezing with very strong N winds gusting to over 35mph. Even colder surge of air is currently pushing through OK with temperatures in the 10’s. Boundary will move off the coast around midday with strong N winds developing across the region. High temperatures near 60-65 in the next few hours will fall quickly into the 40’s this afternoon and 30’s by early to mid evening under strong cold air advection. A dry air mass will begin to moisten overnight into early Tuesday as lift increases within the cold arctic dome entrenching over the area. Lift appears to come from passing base of trough over the Midwest with precipitation breaking out along the I-35 corridor near Austin and spreading ESE into SE TX on Tuesday. From this I will go into the details.

Temperatures:

Upstream air mass is very cold and fairly dry. Expect temperatures to fall to freezing by around midnight tonight over our N and NW counties with the freezing line progressing southward early Tuesday and reaching the coast by mid morning on Tuesday. Combined effect of cold air advection and “wet bulbing” or falling precipitation cooling the air temperature toward the dewpoint looks effective in bringing much of the area below freezing in the 600am-1000am period on Tuesday. Onset of precipitation will likely help to enhance the cooling effect and drive temperatures lower during the day instead of upward. By mid afternoon temperatures could be in the mid to upper 20’s across much of the area. Very cold Wednesday morning…could be looking at hard freeze criteria with temperatures bottoming out in the upper 10’s north to low/mid 20’s elsewhere.

P-type:

Skip down for P-type, “is reasoning”

“I have spent a good deal of time pouring over the forecast model soundings this morning and analyzing various winter P-type techniques to attempt to nail down the P-type for this event. I focused on the snow aspect first using the 1000-850mb thickness values in the SREF ensemble guidance. Given a warm nose aloft I was looking for a value between roughly 1300m and 1275m. SREF guidance shows the 1300m line near HWY 105 around 600am Tuesday, but only sags it very slowly southward during the day reaching the I-10 corridor around 21Z (300pm). A fairly well defined and thick warm nose is noted on both the GFS and NAM forecast soundings roughly about 6,000ft thick. There is room within this warm nose for evaporative cooling, but it appears the mid levels do not cool much while it moistens. I have always been worried about that pesky warm nose in the mid levels and I am not sure it can be overcome to produce snow. The forecast soundings look very much like a freezing rain and sleet profile especially from HWY 105 southward to the coast. The warm nose does shrink and the entire temperature profile comes very close to freezing/sub-freezing in the 300-600pm time period Tuesday and this is when a changeover might occur further southward across the metro Houston area. However the soundings also show significant drying and precipitation ending in the 600-900pm time period so the window for snow production along and south of I-10 is fairly small.”

North of HWY 105: sleet and snow becoming all snow

North of US 59 (SW) and I-10 (E) of Houston: freezing rain mixed with sleet, possibly changing to all sleet and snow

Coast to US 59 (SW) and I-10 (E): freezing rain changing to freezing rain and sleet mix, possible light snow near end of event

Soundings and surface air temperatures really support a freezing rain and sleet event for the southern 2/3rds of SE TX. Northern counties could start as a very brief period of freezing rain, but will likely transition quickly over to snow and remain snow for most of the duration.

Timing:

Of great importance with this event is the onset timing of the precipitation as the area is facing some hard decisions today. Models are is fairly good agreement on the precipitation onset although some of the most recent guidance is trending just a touch faster so I have windowed out times instead of using hard points due to some uncertainty.

N of Hwy 105: 400-600am onset lasting until 300-600pm

N of US 59: 800-1000am onset lasting until 500-800pm

Coast northward: 1000am-noon onset lasting until 800-1000pm

Conditions will quickly deteriorate within about an hour or two of the onset of precipitation at a given location.

Accumulation:

Accumulation is strongly tied to P-type with snow producing more accumulation and sleet/freezing rain less. The major difference between this event and the event last week is that surface air temperatures appear to be about 2-3 degrees colder which will make for very effective ice formation. Additionally it appears temperatures will be at or below freezing the entire time the precipitation process is occurring helping to foster greater accumulation amounts.

Other item to keep in mind is the potential for some banding of the precipitation as is sometimes common is more snow situations which can generate locally heavy snowfall rates and localized higher amounts. This is nearly impossible to determine until it is underway, but the last 3 snow events in SE TX have all had meso scale snow bands which produced greater than expected accumulations. I see some of the shorter range guidance attempting to resolve some of this banding…but do not put much faith it their locations at this point.

Hwy 105 north: 1-3 inches of snow. A trace - .05 of an inch of ice

US 59 north: .10 to .20 inch of ice/sleet. .50 -1.5 inches snow

Coast to US 59: .10 to .30 inch of ice/sleet. Dusting of snow possible

Matagorda Bay area: .05-.10 inch of ice accumulation.

Impacts:

Expect some fairly significant impacts especially to travel starting Tuesday morning and lasting into at least midday Wednesday. Surface temperatures are colder with this event so much of the precipitation will freeze and not be “wasted”. Suspect the bridges and overpasses will go pretty quickly…even if they have been treated with the anti-ice agent. Could even see some problems with the surface streets by late Tuesday and especially Tuesday night with temperatures falling into the lower 20’s.

As for power outages…still think we are below the needed threshold to get widespread outages. Some of the more “wet” model guidance would push areas along and south of US 59 into the .30-.40 inch of ice accumulation range which could be enough to cause some issues…but this is likely the high end worst case with a more moderated ice accumulation of .10-.30 of an inch. N winds of 15-20mph could add some to the ice effect with additional pressure.

Aviation travel is going to be affected with required de-icing procedures on departing aircraft. Expect ice accumulation on control surfaces prior to take-off and moderate to heavy icing through about 6,000 ft in mixed phase precipitation before breaking into the mid level warm nose.

Next update will be with the issuance of the Winter Storm Warning.
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CCorn · Jan 27, 2014

Damn. Another tough day of pickle sales in the ice tomorrow.

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[2014] Winter Storm... In Houston?

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[2014] Winter Storm... In Houston?

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