Does anyone know if it's advisable to fly in to Houston tonight? Associate's connecting flight from Detroit is expected to land around 10 pm at IAH.
There are delays. The problem tonight in Houston is that most of the snow fell with the temp just above freezing so the roads are very wet and will become icy in the next few hours.
That was fun while it lasted, but it's a joke compared to what happened in 1895. It's mind boggling to think of 22 inches in Houston. http://www.alabamawx.com/?p=15309 http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6964/3133/1600/houstonsnow1895.jpg?force=1
Location snow totals Lane City 4.0 inches Boling 4.0 inches Wharton 3.0 inches Fairchild 3.0 inches El Campo 2.5 inches Edna 2.0 inches Pearland (west) 2.5 inches Bay City 2.0 inches Richmond 3.1 inches Missouri City 1.5 inches Sugarland 1.2 inches hobby Airport 1.0 inch Intercontinental 1.0 inch (thru 5 pm) Airport Friendswood 0.2 inch
Eric Berger's Blog December 11, 2009 A cold, possibly even white Christmas? Christmas remains two weeks away, but we can now begin to get the faintest glimpses of what weather it may hold for us. That's because in the range of 10-14 days weather models can just begin to discern patterns in the fog of weather's chaotic nature. And what the models are seeing is a significant cold spell, says Fred Schmude, a forecaster with Houston-based ImpactWeather. Fred gave me the following summary of what might be coming: We are looking at another significant pattern change later in the month which may bring down a surge of much colder air near or right before Christmas, centered on the 21st to the 26th of the month. Confidence in the timing and intensity of the colder air this far out is still on the low side; however, some of the longer range signals we follow here at ImpactWeather our leaning toward the possibility of the much colder weather. Already there are several weather conditions already in place which may allow for this scenario to unfold, including: a deep snow cover well southward over the U.S. High Plains resulting in less modification of any air that builds southward out of Canada and well below normal temperatures at the present time over the a large part of western North America. The only weather condition currently lacking is a driving mechanism to force colder air southward toward the Gulf Coast. Right now we are becoming a little more confident with time this may start to happen late next week, and especially the following week (Christmas Week), as the main storm track is forced southward from Canada due to a building area of high pressure over western North America. You may ask will there be any moisture around to produce wintry type weather if indeed we do see the much colder air? My answer is it's a still too early try and predict anything close to that this far out considering we are nearly 10 days away from seeing the potential pattern change. However, the current El Nino has revitalized the southern storm track in big ways this fall, resulting in more moisture and disturbances over southeast Texas ... so you never know. We will be monitoring it closely! As I suggested above, model forecasts after five to seven days are fairly unreliable. And yet that doesn't stop us from asking the questions, and the early predictions are that we're setting up for a cold Christmas. Houston has never officially recorded snowfall on Christmas Day.
I was considering bumping this thread but its just way too early to rely on what models are seeing that far in advance. They literally were flip-flopping between very warm December weather for us and unprecedented cold weather as far south as Mexico. We shall see but its definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Can you imagine if we had another accumulation event in Houston this winter? This was the first time in Houston's history we had snow accumulate 2 years in a row....and then to have it happen twice in one season? That would be nuts. My kids would love it!
I can tell you from experience, Mexico gets extremely cold but we would get that little drizzly rain that wouldn't stop and it would just saturate the air and at night you couldn't even walk outside because it was so cold and wet (kinda like my ex girlfriend)... and we would get those every year... but when it was extremely cold in South and southeast Texas, it was worse. So, yeah, I think I can see that coming... I can see it all the way down south that's what she said. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
Computer models continue to show a blast of arctic air coming down right around christmas time. Check it out. I need to stress though that this is way way too far to rely on a computer model. When the models show this 3 or 4 days out then you can be reasonably confident. Its probably a mistake to even post this. We'll probably see 60 degree weather for Christmas now.
It kinda fizzled out. It is still early, but very unlikely for any kind of "white" Christmas. Looks very cold and dry after Christmas though.
The forecasts have changed wildly over the past week. Here is a recent GFL model run for total snow accumalations for the next 2 weeks. It shows up to 2 inches sometime in the next two weeks (more towards early Jan) for Houston and snow all the way down to Brownsville. Don't get too excited it changes every run.
