A Winter Surprise

A very interesting morning to say the least across parts of East Texas this morning; snow. Yes, in areas that saw the thickest fog we did see a little light snowfall this morning from a rare atmospheric setup we normally do not see around here. So what happened? In the lowest levels of the atmosphere this morning, between 1000’ and 1500’, there was a little lift indicated, a small area of instability causing the air to rise in this level. Now the amount of energy available was not enough to cause widespread precipitation this morning by itself. Just above this layer temperatures were warming to near 50°F and this caused the air above the fog to begin lifting as well. When you combine the two there was just enough lift to cause light precipitation to form. This happens a lot in the warmer months, right before dense fog lifts, when sometimes you will notice a heavy mist beginning to fall. Since temperatures were in the middle 20s, the water vapor in the atmosphere began to crystallize forming snow grains. Now in order to get a true snow flake to form the temperature needs to be around 14°F to get a branching crystal growth, or what we call in the meteorological world dentritic crystal growth. But it was cold enough to have what we call hexagonal crystal growth where small, needle like snow grains form. These snow grains then continue to grow in the moist fog layer until they are heavy enough to fall to the surface. So where the fog was thickest, we saw enough moisture available for this light snow to grow and fall to the surface. Here are a few photos sent to me from the Longview Kilgore area where most of this winter phenomenon occurred.





So a very fun surprise for most across East Texas who were expecting a little ice yesterday and got a light snow today. This happens many times in areas of the world were you see thick fog and cold air together but around here, well I guess there is a first time for everything.

Possible Ice Storm Tonight....

A potential ice storm is moving towards East Texas this evening. Models and surface trends continue to point towards cold air sliding into East Texas this afternoon. Temperatures have already dropped below freezing across the Dallas Forth Worth Metroplex as of 10:00AM and the freezing line should be moving into the Tyler Longview area between 6:00PM – 8:00PM this evening. A 500mb trough will be moving through the Southern Plains this evening pulling warm moist air over the colder air at the surface causing light rain to break out across Central and East Texas this evening.



By midnight temperatures will drop below the 30 degree mark along and north of I – 20.


At the same time the aforementioned trough moves along the Red River Valley producing the best lift needed for precipitation across East Texas.
Right now it looks like precipitation will be light, 0.25” in most places. However, we will likely see some isolated areas with 0.5” of precipitation leading to 0.25” to 0.50” accumulations of ice in a few locations. Travel will be a greater hazard north of I – 20 where temperatures remained in the mid 30s overnight last night and it will not take as long to cool the ground below freezing. Use extreme caution tonight if you must travel but the best advice is to ride this winter weather event out at home.

Winter Weather on it's Way....

The stage is being set for a possible ice storm across parts of East Texas late tomorrow through Wednesday morning. Winter storm watches are in effect for the northwestern part of East Texas through Wednesday morning. New model data has come in even colder this morning so look for some of these watches to be warnings for a mixture of rain and freezing rain and then for a brief period of time, precipitation should mix or change to snow along the I-20 corridor north. Right now it looks as though there is a chance of seeing 0.25” to 0.50” accumulations of ice from Palestine to Tyler to Gilmer and points north. As with all winter weather events in East Texas, conditions can change rapidly and we will be here monitoring the situation closely. If the cold air moves in a few hours earlier, we could be seeing wintry conditions much farther south than anticipated.

How Cold Can It Get?

Plan your trip Local Radar Detailed Forecast

It still looks cold but you can see that today’s temperatures in Prospect Creek, AK are balmy compared to what they were 38 years ago today. That was when the all time record cold temperature for the United States of America was set at a frigid -80°F! That is only one degree off the all time record low for North America which was -81°F on February 3, 1947 in Snag Yukon, Canada. Temperatures earlier this month unofficially dropped to -83°F in Tok, AK during that frigid arctic outbreak but after investigating the equipment used, it was determined the reading was not accurate. Another all time record most likely was broken for the state of Maine with -50°F being reported at Big Black River on the morning of Friday January 16th. Needless to say parts of the country have been extremely cold this winter.