Wintry precipitation still uncertain for next week
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The arctic cold front
remains on tap to reach southeast Texas on Saturday but probably won't be
immediately noticeable, other than the northerly wind, because the cold air
is trailing several hours behind the surface front.
What happens next, other than the certainty that
we are going to have cold weather most of next week, is high uncertainty
regarding precipitation.? The latest GFS runs, in fact, are less cold
than they had been and have a lower chance of precipitation.? The
ECMWF is also drier but continues to show favorable conditions for snow all
the way to the coast.? The Canadian model is forecasting significant
ice and snow across our entire region, and the German ICON has significant
snow all the way from southeast Texas to the Florida Panhandle.
The model ensemble forecasts still lean toward
southeast Texas receiving at least light wintry precipitation and NWS has
opted to keep a chance in the forecast for most of southeast Texas Monday
night into Tuesday.? Too much uncertainty remains to talk about
amounts with any confidence.
Regarding temperatures, the northern counties of
southeast Texas will drop into the 20s by Saturday night with Sunday highs
likely rebounding to the 40s under daytime sunny skies.? By Sunday
night, lows are expected to range from the low/mid 20s in the northern
counties to the low/mid 30s in the southern counties.
The ECMWF model suggests that in the northern
part of southeast Texas we will see hard freeze conditions Sunday, Monday
and Tuesday nights but warm above freezing for both Wednesday and Thursday
nights before dropping into the freezing range again on Friday night.?
GFS, which is a little warmer, would have Tuesday night above freezing with
the next freeze holding off until Friday night. The Canadian model keeps
every night next week below freezing.? The best advice is to continue
tracking the daily NWS forecasts.
By Monday the cold arctic air will continue
surging southward and bring a hard freeze to most of southeast Texas north
of IH10 for both Monday and Tuesday nights.
Jim Robinson, W5ZYX
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