Snow In Texas/Louisiana Tonight. Georgia, Carolinas & Even Florida Next Week?

Written by on January 24, 2014 in United States of America with 0 Comments

We have a wild and complex winter pattern across the United States right now with one piece of energy after the next swinging around the HUDSON BAY VORTEX which by the way is a permanent wintertime feature but the only difference this year is, it’s a little more ‘loose’ than normal.

Every 4-8 years, this ‘polar vortex’ will manage to take 1, maybe 2 or 3 jogs a little further south than normal and by doing so it drives colder than your typical ‘mid winter cold’ south, usually the bigger outbreaks like we saw at the beginning of the month and what we’ll see again next week, will have Siberia injected air. In other words the coldest air hemisphere-wide (Siberian) will enhance the already super cold air in Arctic Canada and all this will crash south aboard a powerful, cross-polar jet stream.

SEE TODAY’S VIDEO

[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)]

This year is one of those years, made all the more dramatic by media hype and the fact that the past couple of winters have been rather uneventful.

I want to focus on the snow aspect of this pattern in tonight’s post and while there’s plenty going on in the north, we must look at what’s going on right now down across the heart of South Texas where there’s a large area of rain, freezing rain and snow breaking out to the north of Houston across to central Louisiana.

As the cold front sags south to the coast and the air naturally turns colder tonight, rain is likely to turn to sleet, even snow in Houston and even Galveston with 1-3 inches likely just north of Houston and this strip of snow will extend all the way into Louisiana. Precip stays as sleet or rain in New Orleans.

While this event is a big deal across South Texas and Louisiana, we may have an even bigger event coming next week and I’m not talking cold, but snow!

Here’s the ECMWF snow forecast through the next 48 hours.

Next 48 hrs

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Close up of Southern Plains

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

While a clipper swings through the Northeast tonight, another pushes through this weekend and then colder Sunday into Monday. The Sunday-Monday feature looks to be the bigger deal and could add an additional 1-3″ widely through the Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Behind this, the motherlode of cold comes down.

I want to draw your attention to the feature developing over the central Rockies and pushing into the Southern Plains by 120 hrs (below)… This, according to the ECMWF will run the boundary separating fairly warm, moist air with very cold air but it will take a very southern track since the cold crashes south fast.

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

14 hours later and it already pushing northeast along the Carolina coast with some decent Atlantic moisture being thrown inland but note the VERY LOW thickness values indicating bitterly cold air.

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

As a result of this scenario, check out the ECMWF snow forecast through 168 hours.

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Here’s a close up over the Southeast and yes, it has over an inch in North Florida as well as a swath of 3-6 inches through South Georgia and the Carolinas. Is this model error or something worth paying close attention to? Given the setup, it’s very plausible.

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

Courtesy/Owned by AccuWeather Pro

More in tomorrow’s video and write-up!

[/s2If][s2If current_user_cannot(access_s2member_level1)][magicactionbox id=”18716″][/s2If]

Tags: , , , ,

Follow us

Connect with Mark Vogan on social media to get notified about new posts and for the latest weather updates.

Subscribe via RSS Feed Connect on YouTube

Leave a Reply

Top