Winter Weather: Live Blog
MONDAY 12:20 AM
Wise County PD reporting roads are wet but not icy at this time. This despite rain falling and temperatures in the 30 to 32 degree range in Decatur and Bridgeport.
11:15 PM
Leading edge of precip moving into Tarrant Co. Timing below. Rain with sleet and some freezing rain where locations are below freezing. There is some icing on elevated surfaces where this is falling at this time. Mainly tree limbs, roofs, fences, parked cars. There have been a few icy spots reported in Grayson County and quite possibly some icy spots in Parker, Wise, Hood and Erath Counties with this area of precip. Remember it doesn't take much to create some icy spots.
10:40PM
Rain being reported in Mineral Wells up to Jacksboro as next wave comes thru. Temp in Mineral Wells is 31 degrees. Report there saying all rain, but icing on tree leaves and elevated surfaces, NOT on roads at this time. I would expect this as it moves thru Parker and Wise Counties. As it reaches DFW, temps are above freezing so may not see much of a glaze of ice on elevated surfaces.
9:50PM
8:00PM
Winter Storm Warning for NTX has been downgraded to a Winter Weather Advisory. Basically we are looking at less of an impact on roads than with the warning. Precip will mainly be rain with some sleet and freezing rain mixed in at times. But impacts on roads should just be confined to some bridges and overpasses in a few areas. Those areas will favor the northwestern part of North Texas.
7:00PM
6:00PM
Some light rain/sleet moving into parts of Dallas. Heavier precip down toward Hillsboro lifting to the NE toward Eliss, Navarro, Johnson County. More sleet potential that way. Light freezing rain/drizzle in Jack and Wise County at this time. Latest radar here... LOOPING RADAR
4:30PM
As was talked about since Thursday and Friday, the round of precip that was coming thru on Sunday would have minimal impact on travel with just a few icy spots. But the round of precip coming Sunday night into Monday morning would have more impact on travel conditions. This still looks to be the case.
The second wave of precipitation will arrive after midnight and continue thru the morning on Monday. The type of precipitation remains a challenge. This will be dependent on the amount of cooling at the surface that can occur as precipitation falls into the drier air at the surface. As that precip falls into the drier air, it should evaporate and drop temperatures a few degrees. This is what should happen when you look at the physical properties of the atmosphere. But the problem is most of the forecast model guidance is not showing this happening. As I talked about earlier, models don't understand the evaporative cooling process terribly well. Almost all of the models keep temperatures above freezing in the DFW area overnight and Monday morning. This would mean a cold rain with some sleet mix.
If that evaporative cooling process can drop us into the upper 20s we are looking at more significant impacts.
So what is going to happen?
The most logical outcome is that we will see rain/sleet mixture in the DFW area from about 3am thru 9am Monday morning give or take a few hours depending on where you live. Depending on the temperatures, there will be very little impact on the roads with just a few icy spots where the sleet is heavier. Or if it does get colder, significant impacts on roads. It all comes down to a precious degree or two. And there could be a cutoff line from those that get sleet and those that get rain. That cut-off line could intersect right across DFW.
It should be stated that this will not be the worst ice storm we have ever seen. In fact, far from it. There will be calls of how it was overhyped and all the criticism that comes from giving a forecast that includes winter weather. But I hope that thru this blog I am able to express my thoughts and share the uncertainty in the forecast. The forecast is always going to be wrong to some people. Often time it comes to perception over facts. I hope I am able to express the facts in a way that makes sense. ~Larry Mowry
4:00PM
Temperatures above freezing for most areas. Drizzle and mist will continue as we go into the evening.
4PM TEMPS
2:20PM
All is quiet on the weather front, the lull before the next wave arrives. We won't be doing anymore cut-ins. Larry will update everyone at 5:30p just before 60 Minutes and then again at 10pm. Almost all the forecast models continue to show the precipitation coming in overnight as a cold rain. We continue to insist it'll be sleet.
Larry will be manning the CBS11 Weather Center through the night; Scott Padgett and Jeff Jamison arrives around 2am. You can follow Larry via Twitter: @CBS11Larry for updates across the evening after the 10pm.
1:25PM
For the last 30 minutes Larry's been typing away at great speeds. Here is the text that is on the CBSWeather Facebook page:
1:10pm
Larry is going to do a half-time update on the weather. We are only expecting drizzle/mist at times for the rest of the day. The precipitation came through the metro and drop the temperatures only a few degrees. More importantly, the dewpoints are still in the mid-20's. The question is now is how much do we warm (if at all) this afternoon? The LAMP (a RUC-based short-range forecast) shows the DFW Airport getting back up to 38°. All this is crucial to our calculation on where the Sleet/Cold rain line will set up in the second wave. The NWS office didn't do an 18z sounding (a balloon released in the air to measure the temperature, dewpoint and wind in the air column overhead); typically these balloons only go up at 6am and 6pm. Sometimes they do a launch at noon to help the forecast models resolve the dynamics.
As we look at the forecast soundings (the profile of the atmosphere above the surface) we again notice the evaporational cooling that is going on overhead never translates down to the surface. I'll look at these scenarios a hundred times and always scratch my head on this. How do the physic equations in the various model absorb the shot of cold?
Here at 1pm Frz Rain is reported in Denton and McKinney, Sleet at Love Field, Lgt Rain elsewhere. Most locations are just above freezing by a few degrees save for the northwest counties: Bridgeport, Gainesville and Mineral Wells are at 30° to 31°. It's in the 40's in Palestine and Henderson.
12:37AM
We are watching the first band of winter weather moving over Dallas and Collin Co now. It's behaving as anticpated- reports of sleet/rain but no problems on roads. Be weary of the bridges and overpasses. For the rest of the afternoon we'll have light drizzle/mist that could easily freeze on elevated surfaces. Below is a link to a special Webcast Larry just did here in studio:
11:57AM
It was too difficult to time a window during the pregame. Larry is going to do a live update now right before the game starts.
11:54AM
Here is a link to our Live CBS11 Doppler. Bookmark this for future reference:
http://weather.dfw.cbslocal.com/auto/cbs11tvV3/Region/Southcentral/2xRadar.html
11:44AM
Rain/Sleet and Sleet reports starting to come in all across Tarrant County. We are only expecting minor problems on the roads with the threat mostly on the bridges and overpasses. Minor amounts will fall. The big winter show starts later tonight and lasts into mid-morning Monday.
11:35AM
With temperatures around 34-35° in metro area we are thinking the current band of precipitation will not be enough to cool us down to any signficant freezing rain. This will be light rain/sleet changing quickly over to sleet. Temperatures will drop to around freezing. This appears to be the only significant round we get this afternoon. We'll continue to get light sleet/drizzle the rest of the day. We'll be waiting for the main winter storm to hit after midnight.
11:30AM
Larry is ready to cut-in during the pre-game in the next 5 minutes or so. We've got some icing photos to show you from Decatur. If you have any photos of winter weather where you can upload them at http://yourphotos.dallas.cbslocal.com/189971133
A WINTER STORM WARNING is in effect until Monday Noon for a large swath of north Texas:
It was nice to see the sun peaking through this morning over the metroplex. Clouds have quickly come in, temperatures remain just above freezing as of 10am in the metro area. They are below freezing across Decatur and Parker Counties and to the north and west.
The first round of winter weather has been moving over the our western counties since early morning. Bowie as reported about a tenth of an inch of sleet with little impact on the roads. In southern Decatur Co. they have reported brief freezing rain and sleet. There are no impacts on roads yet around the metro area; we are expecting that to continue at least until the noon hour.
The band of mixed precipitation you see over Parker and Decatur counties is moving into Tarrant county around 11am. Some of this will evaporate overhead at first so it'll be light sleet/rain. Then it'll be all sleet. Amounts will be light.
This will go on for a few hours at least. It'll become more spotty across the evening. The big wave of winter weather comes in overnight and lasts across the Monday morning commute. This looks to be a mix of sleet with some occasional freezing rain, making a mess of the roads.
It could be just a cold rain/sleet mix across the Corsicana and Athens and southeast. But for the areas to the west and northwest of the metro area it could be an ice/snow event that will makes roads impassable dispite the lighter amounts of total precipitation:
This is also the area that has the best chance of accumulating snow:
Larry Mowry and myself have assumed a siege mentality here in the CBS11 Weather Center. We are watching the surface observations, latest model runs and StormTracker reports. With ALL "winter-mix"separated by a few degrees.
Here are the temperatures at 11am. Where they fall into the 20's is where the greatest risk of icing on the roads exists. In Decatur our Storm Chaser Jason McLaughlin reports rain falling but its freezing on the cars and metal. Roads are still wet.
We are starting to do cut-ins into NFL football pre-game. We'll be breaking in on and off through the afternoon tracking this first round of winter mix.
