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Everything posted by phdhorn
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Holy shit, that guy writes more than Frankie talks! No real update to the update today... possibly a trend towards cold being slightly colder through the stretch (i.e. doesn't warm up as much), and less precip chance around here. I really don't think Thursday will be much of an ice/driving/etc. event. Back if any sigfin.. er, sigcifi.. er, big changes.
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Alright, here's the update: Next 2 days unseasonably warm and clear. Except for the %^&*()@)(* cedar pollen, really nice. Enjoy 'em. So the forecast deteriorates early Thursday a.m. Somewhere around 3-4 a.m. a cold front currently in southern Canada will have made its way into the area. This is a dandy of continental cold, typical for January. The air will moderate, again as usual, as it makes its way down the continent. By the time it hits Austin, it should be pretty salty, but Thursday should generally be above freezing in ATX, and the ground warm, esp. after the preceding 2 days near 80°. This cold will last for about 4 days, but each day getting slightly warmer. Thursday should be very chilly, temps in the low 40's south and east ATX, and down into the 30's the farther W/N you go. We shouldn't generally be in an all-day freezing area, but spots around the region might not get much above 32°, again esp. N and W. I'm thinking mid-upper 30's for most of us. Again - above freezing. Each day from Thurs. to Sunday, temps will tick up 5ish degrees for highs (Fri. low 40's, Sat. mid-upper 40's to 50ish, Sun. 50's). There will be 4 overnights with clearly freezing temps area-wide... mid-to upper 20's for TravWilHaysCo, warmer nearer downtown. But these freezes will end by mid-morning each day. So yeah, it'll be cold but not out of the norms. Pipes, pets, plants, yada. That's all temps. The kicker a little should be precip. And there's only one point where precip and temps intersect such that road freezing might be a brief concern - this is early Thursday into the morning. This is when temps are most likely to be < 32° (although briefly). A mild storm will be making its way W to E across the region. This storm will dip down to the SoCal area then over... it's not plowing directly at us from the NW, and will have limited moisture. Nevertheless, whatever falls could briefly cause icy spots (esp. bridges, etc. - you know the drill). Morning rush might be, but won't necessarily be, tricky. At first, the air in mid-levels will be warm, so if rain doesn't fall, the most likely thing would be sleet - and again, light... this isn't a coating or anything. The precip will get strongest as the day gets on, so temps around here should be enough that rain is the most likely - or rain mixed with sleet and even snowflakes. Right now there is very little chance of snow accumulation - the storm is weak and temps shouldn't be favorable. However, later in the day the cold air will displace the warm at most atmospheric levels, and this is where snow might be heavier. Again, at most a dusting but probably not (N and W moreso). This low might actually make the weater E and SE of us a little worse later Thurs as it picks up more Gulf moisture and could put slick patches on roads between here and the coast. But again, nothing of major concern right now. Models don't agree very well right now though, so it could get a little colder and wetter (or vice-versa). The forecast above is the "safest" and most likely. However, yes this could change. I would expect a Winter Weather Advisory to be issued for somewhere in our region (diff. between that and Winter Storm Warning - another time, if you can't remember, but the former is less acute). As always, these things are iffy as to isobar temp lines and precip amounts. But this is what I'm going with right now. Of course if this changes, I'll be back. In no case do I see any major widespread region-wide problems with weather Thursday. All of the precip should be done by Thurs. night and the rest is just cold for 3 more days. Again, nothing we haven't seen a lot. tl;dr: Thursday dawns with cold blast; small storm intersects and will drop light rain, maybe some sleet, and snow around the multiple county region. Temps get past freezing and eventually rain wins out (if much at all). Precip gone by later in the evening. Friday widespread sunrise freeze. Temps hit > freezing about mid-morning, then just cold, about 40°, either side. Saturday rinse and repeat, add about 3-5 degrees to Friday forecast. Sunday back into the high 50's and it's over. I will be back if models change, especially for the worse. In any event precip will be light, scattered, and maybe 12 hours off/on at most. G'night.
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Meanwhile, off topic for the thread, I'm going to give a weather update later this evening. Pretty good chance for light winter precip during the day Thursday. This is going to be a fairly typical colder winter spell for us, nothing even remotely resembling last February. You're not going to have to buy out HEB (as if there's anything on the shelves anyway, LOL). The only freezes will be as typical, i.e before sunup and just after. I don't think travel will be much affected either, this will be brief and light. I'll be back later.
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If it happens, you won't be able to get out of your house or drive, and you'll probably freeze to death anyway. So no, not gonna happen. I'm good either way.
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No. Just normal winter weather, if a bit on the colder side - highs mid/low 40's to low 50's, lows (Thurs-Sun mornings) mid-20's to around freezing in the area). Just because we had one one-in-500-year event, people are now spooked to imagine we'll have a buncha them. It could still of course get very cold for 2-3 days (ice up, be the same conditions as we had last year), and some of our biggest deep freezes in the past 20 years have been well into February - but - the chances of a freeze 24/7 lasting longer than 2-3 days at the very most are infinitesimal. It's not gonna happen.
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Yeah, although I was thinking more of the statements themselves. Looks like they got Bobby Knight to write them for them. That's how you write a shitty statement of "unity."
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Now this is funny, from his home mosque in England: Just not sure that's gonna happen... And talk about back door condemnation, those last sentences LOL, "it's wrong for a Muslim to kill a Jew," and "it's also wrong for a Jew to kill a Muslim..., or a Hindu, a Christian, a Baha'i, a Swede, a Tampa Bay Buccaneer... you know, all the different people those murdererous Jews like to kill!" Thanks pal, I'll skip over you giving my eulogy at the funeral. With friends like you...
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That smoke and ash the 2nd best thing to come out of Tonga. The first?
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Gary Patterson.
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Concur. I grew up in (sorta) cold country on East Coast. I attended the U. of Michigan graduate school. That winter cured me of my enjoyment of cold. I moved to Texas to school, where it was 65° December 17ish that year. I got hooked after that. I'm a lifelong winter sports enthusiast/former ski instructor and I can tell you that I never want to visit cold unless it's temporary, and for skiing. The rest can blow it out its frostbitten ass. If it never went below 60° night or day here again I would be fine. You want cold? Go to where it's supposed to be cold. I don't love Austin Augusts but I can live with them, after all, I made the choice to move here and expect it. On the current weather level, what's happening this week is more what's supposed to happen, at least in La Niña years... a blocking high typical of LN in the 4 corners/SW U.S. is preventing frigid air to plunge directly into Texas. Coriolis effect, etc. has storms instead moving E through northern U.S. and then plunging down mainly east of the Mississippi. This is what's gonna happen to the curent storm coming in which is going to give the SE and Atlantic Coast a good bit of snow. Yes we'll cool off as the low sweeps down east of us and cold air funnels in on its west side, but that air is more moderated, and gives us 50's in the daytime, not 20's. The bulk of the colder air sinks mainly E of us (20's and teens overnight in KY, AR, TN, SC, northern AL, MS, etc.). We'll have a light freeze Sat and/or Sun overnight, but eventually temps back into the 60's by early mid-week. When we have to freak out is when a blocking high begins sitting off NE Atlantic coast. That shoves coldest air smack down to us. Last Feb. that high sat there and nothing could displace it, so a series of cold fronts kept temps < freezing - night and day - for 10 days. The scenario for that happening again within 500, never mind 5 years, is almost off the charts. Famous last words? Maybe, but I doubt it. One last thing - watch for very high winds coming in Saturday. This is a powerful low and it's moving right by us; the pressure gradients will be very tight, and winds will whip up pretty nasty, could see sustained at 30 mph, gusts up to 60 here/there, for about 8-10 hours. Could be tree limb/shingle displacement in areas. Might be highest winds we've seen independent of a brief thunderstorm in a few years. I'd take down flags and put your feather boas in the shed.
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Well yeah, but other than that and seventy skillion other problems, it's good.
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Mortals attempting to close the Gates of Hell
phdhorn replied to Immaculate Vibes's topic in Daily Texan
Comments are getting pretty petty here... -
Well, at least thank God Maryland isn't on the next few years' schedules.
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ESPN Way Too Early Top 25: 1. Bammer 2. Ohio I love Tatoo State 3. Georgeneck 4. uh... well.... 4. C'MON, Dammit! Show me! 4. Well, you're not gonna like it... 4. SHOW THE DAMN TEAM! 4. Well... okay, here goes... 4. Texas Agriculture and Mechanical College... __ . U of Texas (er, i.e. not ranked) Gonna be a fun season next year! https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32999406/the-2022-way-too-early-college-football-top-25 I heard last night that Alabama mailed it in, they didn't want to be there.
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Yeah, maybe, lol. Not only all the stuff in the most recent posts, but the Captain telling them to use horses for the trip instead of oxen, yeah, well, uh, no. Unless you wanna die. So I think you're right. (Way-too-far-out-for-anything-but-coincidence fact though... in the late 19th Century, German immigrants were fairly hated during their peak, which was about 10-20 years before this supposedly represents, about 1850s-70's, and a political party formed in the 1840's to foment anti-German sentiment. A stretch but it's an option, lol).
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LOL I joked to the wife that if they had just crossed like 50 yards upstream, it was about 4" deep (needed more cinematographic editing, lol!). It was also hard to believe that the German chick wanted to get knocked up while on the starting end of the transatlantic crossing. Some real thinkin' there. Finally, we were rooting harder for the cattle to make it across than the people - so that part was rewarding. Still watchable but man, it's getting lethargic now.
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Saget's death overshadowed another giant (actually), especially in the early TV world. Dwayne Hickman, who started out as an actor (Dobie Gillis), did some movies, but then went into the production side and galactically influenced the TV sitcom in the 60's and beyond. You might "barely" have heard of him but he was as influential as Sherwood Schwartz in formulating much of prime time TV for 30 years. Great guy, too. 86. Parkinson's. RIP!
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I think each of those messages adds .000003521 wattts to your phone output. Collect 20 million of them and you can warm your bedroom!
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1) I look fabulous! 2). She's 8 years younger than me and maintains herself exceptionally well. No, I didn't start dating her when I was 20.
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You might be right. Ammo's so expensive now it'd probably be a tradeoff. This is all you're gonna get and it don't particularly show much, but you'll get next to nothing and like it! (from annual OU loss @ fair about 3 yrs. ago, still the same except now her hair's permed (wavier for you aggys or SEC posters out there).
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She has a terrific ass. I posted them (clothed) before. Would have to find them. Because "honey can I take a picture of your ass for the Surly pervos" usually is met with "I'd have to think about it" at least - before the gunshot.
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Unfortunately, La Niña is typically a drier season for us down here (December is actually right on the mark for a moderate La Niña). Sorr-eee. Moose out front shoulda told ya. I don't see it. However, as ad infinitum posted here, a La Niña dry winter don't mean much about how the spring/summer can go. It can break within a week - or linger on. Niñas and Niños are primarily winterish things and don't particularly govern the summers. I.e. last summer was wet and cool. The current outlook for the summer is warmer than normal, precip 50/50. In other words, call me in March when it becomes realistic (although CPC's models are usually excellent - from about 2 months out... right now it's too soon).
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... and while I'm here, to turn back to weather (thankfully!) the question might be about the likelihood of a vortex or "polar piece" breaking off. Put very simply, this needs two components: 1) the formation of a strengthened core of polar air; and 2) a forced interruption of high pressure systems into the pole to disturb and dislodge some of this cold air. La Niña years encourage these - but mostly a colder, wetter upper U.S. Any polar air as normal slides east of Texas mostly, as indeed happened in the La Niña stretches of 2005-12 (multiple winters, various strengths), and 2016-18). And indeed 2020 was in the midst of the current La Niña, which has been weak to moderate. This year the La Niña is actually a little stronger, but the winter has been warm here. In fact polar releases are behind schedule, although the last 2-3 cold outbreaks saw a few of them, but these have remained mostly in Canada or the northern U.S. So 1) has happened, but 2) is still up in the air (pun intended). The winds circling the cold polar core have held up more than expected, prohibiting large outbreaks of this rather strong core to drop off. It's like a cell wall protecting the nucleus, and disallowing invaders behind its "fort." The outbreaks some forecast for the last week of Dec. into this week haven't been as strong and southerly. So, in other words, this year is holding up sort of normally. Cold air remains north, or is displaced mostly into the NE U.S. (and maybe into the Southeast). The science with all this is complex and intricate, but if you want I can post graphs and pictures and stuff to make it look pretty. But for now, the winter for us is "will the cold plunge here or is there enough La Niña stuff pushing it back north to largely spare us?" The answer - so far - is the latter.
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Yeah, but doubtful. Nevertheless some progress was made. SB3 requires upgrades for power producers and transmission lines to be upgraded. But that costs $ and as almost always the case with infrastructure, funding is yet to be clearly defined. But compliance isn't required until later this year. The legislation also left out natural gas suppliers, which only requires upgrading if deemed necessary by regulators (which is actually a good move, because it's realistic). They were able to raise about $6.5B in bonds to help electric companies upgrade (which will be passed on to consumers, both business and residential). It also has a provision to increase bills by a few $/mo. (not fully implemented yet) to pay back the losses to the companies (which is frustrating at least but probably necessary). And the current myriad of lawsuits going on doesn't help much either. It's still a fairly decent CF but progress has been made, if not ideal. What happened last winter was almost inconceivable, but now it is. We've been lucky actually that it hasn't happened more (we had a number of big, long freezes dive east of us though the last decade, which is the norm, while we get the western edge - shorter, less frigid freezes). The other big bill (SB2) pretty much reorganizes ERCOT. That one was easier to implement. Like most stuff though, it costs $ to fix. Where is it coming from? That's not yet settled. I do think the intent, if not the follow-through, is good though. Of course "follow through" can't pay for stuff. The other thing I haven't heard a peep of out of any politician, either side of the aisle, is the effect of Texas' light-speed growing population. We have like 50% more customers (residential and commercial) than we had say 50 years ago, and certainly about half of that within the last 30 years. That's a lot of extra power demand. I don't know what's being done to address that - I guess someone's figured it out and calculated it, but I haven't seen pop. growth as a factor in the power void last Feb. But it certainly played a part. We'll see. Meanwhile hopefully La Niña will make freezes less frequent and long this winter. I think, but can't be sure, that the system will mostly work with a "normal" winter. If we have a super-freeze again, I seriously doubt it. But unlike last winter, when the length and severity of the freeze was definitely missed (not forecast, even up to the day before - no one called for those extra 3-4 freezing days before the "expected" freeze and snowstorm), and with good reason, the next one will hopefully see more residents' prep (new generators, etc.). But Rome wasn't built in a day, blah blah blah. I guess I can hope.
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That article (now behind a paywall to me) was terribly written and seemed like nothing more than a political cheerlead. However, I did see a similar article from a Houston TV web site that was better: https://www.click2houston.com/news/texas/2022/01/05/texas-natural-gas-production-dropped-during-recent-cold-front-reviving-concerns-about-electric-grid/ This subject is mostly political and is being discussed (although inappropriately in a DT thread) about a grid burp this past summer) elsewhere. However I can say two things: 1) The grid system absolutely needs more fixin', but it'll take time. And I think they'll get there. But anyone who thinks "it's all better" is off the mark. However I do think some improvements have been made since last year - and not just ERCOT. The power companies were also majorly at fault, and though they seem to have skated under from much of the blame that ERCOT's gotten, they're quietly wiping their foreheads and understanding they sucked and BADLY, at managing what power ERCOT could provide. Anyway call me naive, but I do believe steps were taken to improve things. But it's gonna take longer than 10 months to get it done. 2) It won't matter much this winter anyway, because I'd be willing to bet the family Labrador that there's no way we'll have a NINE-day 24/7 freeze in several lifetimes soon. Of course what happened last year wasn't normal - the polar breakout happens a lot, it's just that last year it was an extremely rare blast that we were in the bullseye (99% of the time the earth's rotation causes those things to dive more east of us, into the NE U.S.). Of course past performance is in no way a guarantee of future results, but the grid should expect maybe at worst a 3-day freeze - for the northern and central parts of Texas. Will it hold up for just that? I think so. Could a mega-freeze happen again? Always the (microscopic) chance. So yeah, we should prepare as if it can and will. But now people freak out when a completely normal freeze forecast (1-2 overnights in a row) is called for our area. Since this is mainly a weather and not political thread, I'm staying away from that, except to say I don't blame people as much as others. It's like "why didn't you prepare for that meteor that hit Houston???!?!?!" because chances were only slightly more that that weather event would happen here. Nevertheless, although those provider stations esp. in N. Texas won't "need" that upgraded equipment much at all for the next decade, they need to have it. Because now everyone knows what "no power" means in the winter. The rest is politics, which frankly, fuck all that.
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