Winter Storm Update

There’s not much change this morning to the forecast. We are still expecting wintry weather in Texas and Louisiana, and all of the states north this weekend and into next week. This will be a mixed event. Snow, rain, sleet, freezing rain will all be occurring in different places throughout the next 7 days.

Let’s start with today and tomorrow.

Here is a temperature map for Friday morning. This is from the NAM model. Notice the area I circled in red. That part of East Texas and western Louisiana will stay just above freezing. So, any precipitation falling in that area will remain as rain Thursday and Friday morning. The interesting thing to me about this map is that area coincides with the Piney Woods. This is a pretty good example of how terrain can affect weather. Those forrest will keep temperatures just a couple of degrees warmer than the areas outside of the woods, and in this case, that’s enough to keep the winter weather at bay for two more days.

The areas in blue in West Texas and up into southern Arkansas will see freezing rain/sleet/snow mixtures. Fortunately, those showers will mostly be light Thursday and Friday.

Sunday night and Monday morning, it changes, and the precipitation becomes heavier. Also, the temperatures will continue to fall and we’ll see freezing weather all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.

This is the GFS output for Monday morning. The blue is snow, the green is rain and the pinks and purples in between the snow and rain will be something in between snow and rain (sleet/freezing rain).

Now, normally, this far south, you get a blast of winter weather, and then the air from the Gulf of Mexico returns and almost immediately starts to warm things up. Not this time! After the snow on Monday, we’re going to see some of the longest periods of time with temperatures staying below freezing that this area has seen in decades. Temperatures will be below freezing Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And, that may lead to yet another pass of wintry weather.

This is the GFS output for Wednesday afternoon. Now, take this with a grain of salt, because the models aren’t very good with winter forecasts this far south this many days out. But, it’s the idea that’s worth noting. Another disturbance in the upper atmosphere will swing over Texas and Louisiana, and surface temperatures will still be below freezing for most of the area. That makes this worth watching.