Monday, February 22, 2010

Winter Storm Watch for parts of East Texas



A winter storm watch is in effect a good chunk of Texas including Anderson, Henderson, and Houston Counties in East Texas. An upper level low pressure associated with very cold air aloft will move across the state starting tonight. As this system moves in to East Texas, rain mixed with sleet and snow should start to fall by tomorrow morning. As the precipitation increases, surface temperatures will drop to near freezing by tomorrow afternoon causing snow to accumulate in some areas. Right now it appears the greatest chance of accumulating snowfall will be south of I-20 where some places could receive an inch or two. The greatest snowfall looks to occur from Palestine to Rusk and points south to a Crockett Lufkin line. Isolated amounts could be over 4 inches in these areas. Below is a snow fall accumulation map from the NAM forecast model. This model did very well predicting the East Texas snow 10 days ago 24 hours out so if it is right again, a few places could see as much as 6 inches of snow. It all depends on where the heaviest bands of snow develop which we really won't know until tomorrow, so this snowfall forecast could change.

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