Ouch Western Gulf, You're Getting Hammered Right Now

[Xerarch]

Here it is, middle of the afternoon and I'm seeing lots of low to mid 30's on the Wundermap in Texas and Louisiana. Forecast doesn't look to pretty either. Good luck everyone! This is where you pat yourself on the back and rest easy tonight if your not a zone pusher. Curse the blue norther. 

[necturus]

Yeah, this looks bad. I moved a lot inside. Will be interesting to see how the tropicals look next week.

[Xenon]

Very bad...already 29F here at 8 pm...forecast for a low of 24F. Anyways my tropical fruit trees are screwed ...fabric cover without heat isn't going to do much. Even Brownsville is forecast for 30F...looks like the coast will be spared due to the warm water (surf temp at SPI was 70F yesterday). 

 

[NorCalKing]

I'm still reading these temps from this blast and it's really stunning. There are parts of Dallas that never broke 25f all day! Texas has to have one of the wildest climates I've ever seen. Such crazy variations.They are calling for 76f on Thursday. 

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

High was 28 today and currently 22 now, but only dropping to 19-20 tonight with no wind. Nowhere near as bad as the awful front in december. 

[_Keith]

We are at 30, but they keep dropping that projected low.  Now it is 25.   There are some clouds trying to backfill the clear skies.  That could keep it a couple degrees warmer.  Crossing fingers.

[Xenon]

Already 25F at 1 AM...should hold till sunrise (maybe drop a degree or two). Houston's heat island is not working either, not much warmer than me...there is going to be a lot of dead/dying zone 10 stuff 

Edited January 7, 2017 by Xenon

[Xerarch]

4 hours ago, Xenon said:

Already 25F at 1 AM...should hold till sunrise (maybe drop a degree or two). Houston's heat island is not working either, not much warmer than me...there is going to be a lot of dead/dying zone 10 stuff 

Sorry Jonathan, right now I'm showing around 19-21 in Katy depending on which station. Central Houston is around 24, this last summer I was pleased to see a few mango trees in central Houston, bet those are toast now.  Even showing 28 or 29 on north padre, south padre still holding strong at 35-36. 

[Ed in Houston]

Coldest temperatures in several years in Houston. The central part of the U.S. got the worst of this cold spell.

 

Here is a screen shot of Houston Temperatures from the intellicast website at 7am this morning.

Temps are near 20 in the north, west and southwest sectons of  Houston.

Low to mid 20s in the downtown area.

About 27 in S.E. Houston at my place.

Low 30s in Galveston area.

Any zone pushers are being confronted with reality.

Ed in Houston

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

Zero cloud cover allowed the temp to drop to 14.1 at the house but 12.9 at the nursery.  North of me 15-20 miles the Ft Worth north and western suburbs were in the single digits.  Lots of 7-8 degrees readings in Denton. While this was a lower temperature it wasn't nearly as bad as the December storm for us with the 30-40MPH wind and two nights of 16.

 

[TexasColdHardyPalms]

Corpus dropped really low as well.  A few 22-25 readings in davis weatherlink stations.

[Yunder Wækraus]

35 minutes ago, Ed in Houston said:

Coldest temperatures in several years in Houston. The central part of the U.S. got the worst of this cold spell.

 

Here is a screen shot of Houston Temperatures from the intellicast website at 7am this morning.

Temps are near 20 in the north, west and southwest sectons of  Houston.

Low to mid 20s in the downtown area.

About 27 in S.E. Houston at my place.

Low 30s in Galveston area.

Any zone pushers are being confronted with reality.

Ed in Houston

Can you find an image of SPI from the same source?

[Palmaceae]

Looks like most of the country is in the freezer.

 

[Ed in Houston]

18 minutes ago, Yunder Wækraus said:

Can you find an image of SPI from the same source?

Here are a couple of screen shots at 8:30am from intellicast and weatherunderground.

 

Ed in Houston

 

 

 

 

[_Keith]

Got slammed here, around 24.   And still got another night coming.   

[Xenon]

Tonight

NWS station at SPI is not reporting but checking some of the Wunderground stations, looks like SPI's low was in the 32-33F range. Brownsville recorded 31F.

[Xenon]

Interesting contrast on both sides of the Sierra Madre Oriental in Mexico

[Las Palmas Norte]

Humm that's showing Havana at 28°F ... that can't be correct. Either way that's some nasty cold for all those involved.

Cheers and "warm" wishes, Barrie.

[NorCalKing]

Man did we ever dodge a bullet on the West coast. This was the cold front last week they expected to push west of the Sierra Mountain range. They had us a week ago at 25f, instead we were 41f overnight.

[topwater]

That was bad, but I guess it was over due.  I had nine hours below freezing, it bottomed out at 28f.   

[_Keith]

Actually the 24 last night wasn't all that bad on a lot of things as there was still a lot of latent ground heat.  Most things don't look that bad.   It will be tonight with that low of 26 and below freezing for 16 hours that will be the killer.

[Xerarch]

One thing to keep in mind during all of this  is that much of the area we are talking about is zone 9a anyway, we get a few milder than average winters and everyone hopes to be growing tropicals. These temperatures, though disheartening for those of us that always hope for warm winters, are really in line with what we can expect from time to time. 

[_Keith]

6 minutes ago, Xerarch said:

One thing to keep in mind during all of this  is that much of the area we are talking about is zone 9a anyway, we get a few milder than average winters and everyone hopes to be growing tropicals. These temperatures, though disheartening for those of us that always hope for warm winters, are really in line with what we can expect from time to time. 

 

[Xenon]

Calling for 22F tonight but water is finally working its magic, Galveston forecast to be stay above freezing tonight and bayfront areas ~30F
 

Gets much better further south, Brownsville forecast for 36F (low 40s for South Padre)

 

Edited January 8, 2017 by Xenon

[Zeeth]

8 hours ago, Las Palmas Norte said:

Humm that's showing Havana at 28°F ... that can't be correct. Either way that's some nasty cold for all those involved.

Cheers and "warm" wishes, Barrie.

My guess is that the Havana weather station is reporting in Celsius.

[NorCalKing]

40 minutes ago, Xerarch said:

One thing to keep in mind during all of this  is that much of the area we are talking about is zone 9a anyway, we get a few milder than average winters and everyone hopes to be growing tropicals. These temperatures, though disheartening for those of us that always hope for warm winters, are really in line with what we can expect from time to time. 

Totally true. Look, I enjoy zone pushing as much as the next guy, but I see some who are pushing 2-3 zones. When an average winter strikes, I can't feel sorry for them

[RedRabbit]

I hope Mr. Coconut Palm is doing okay. He's got a lot of cocos planted in Corpus Christi. 

[_Keith]

The freeze went all the way to Mexico.  Corpus got a hard toasting.  Not gonna be pretty,  but not like something we are not used too.  

[Xenon]

[_Keith]

Tough one out there again tonight.  It is 27 as I type this at 2am.   Of course the craziness of the Gulf Coast is that in 4 days the highs will be back in the 77-78 range.

[AnTonY]

As a frequent lurker of this site, I am now honored to be an official member of this very interesting forum. The information present on this site helped a lot regarding plantings for my area, as well as the necessary precautions to take. Thank you all so much.

Edited January 8, 2017 by AnTonY

[enigma99]

Wow I had no idea this was going on. The arctic is damn cold this winter, coldest it has been for me in 3 years. Time to rebuild I guess in Houston and hope next winter is better

[Las Palmas Norte]

Welcome aboard An Ton Y.

Cheers, Barrie.  

[AnTonY]

On 1/6/2017, 8:28:19, NorCalKing said:

I'm still reading these temps from this blast and it's really stunning. There are parts of Dallas that never broke 25f all day! Texas has to have one of the wildest climates I've ever seen. Such crazy variations.They are calling for 76f on Thursday. 

The variations aren't much different than what is observed in, say, the inland SE US. This winter, teleconnections have been such that the cold blasts have a more central-focused (rather than eastern, or all-around) trajectory.

31 minutes ago, enigma99 said:

Wow I had no idea this was going on. The arctic is damn cold this winter, coldest it has been for me in 3 years. Time to rebuild I guess in Houston and hope next winter is better

It's as if the weather gods wanted to focus these arctic blasts to make the Texas Gulf Coast cold. Last winter, Central Houston was frostless (low was only 34F). This winter, lows in the low 20s were observed, colder than Beaumont (a place Houston is consistently warmer than practically every other winter); in fact, Corpus Christi, far south on the coast, had around the same temps as Beaumont.

I dorm in Houston (at UH), so when I get back to campus, I will survey damage, and report any observations.

[Xenon]

3 minutes ago, AnTonY said:

I dorm in Houston (at UH), so when I get back to campus, I will survey damage, and report any observations.

Wonder what those large papayas near Agnes Arnold will look like lol. Other than some nice Monstera vines, I haven't really found anything too tender on campus. 

 

[AnTonY]

2 minutes ago, Xenon said:

Wonder what those large papayas near Agnes Arnold will look like lol. Other than some nice Monstera vines, I haven't really found anything too tender on campus. 

 

Yep, those are the plants I am going to check out when I return. Those papayas at Agnes Arnold surprised me the first time; I thought they were fake, until I felt the fruit. I've always wondered the origin story to those plantings.

Looking at UH's landscaping, you can tell that the school was really Ragnarok-proofing when it came to plantings of palms, and such; all the palm trees (Washingtonia) in campus are right by buildings below the level surface (like at the Moody Tower Parking Garage, or the Satellite), reflective of a time in the mid 20th century when teens were relatively frequent in Houston (and the SE). 

[Ed in Houston]

Here is an intellicast screen shot at 7am this morning for Houston. Temps have moderated somewhat from yesterday. This freeze differs from yesterday and is a radiational freeze instead of the advective freeze of yesterday.

Temps in the low to mid 20s in the burbs with a warmer inner city and on toward the bay and Galveston.

My place was 32 in S.E. Houston but Galveston and areas nearer the bay did not freeze.

 

The lowest yesterday was 26 at my place, about 2.5 degrees below the average annual lowest for the last 25 years. Some areas of the city were closer to 5 degrees below the average annual lowest for the last 25 years.

I am guessing that typical palms planted in the area such as queens and pygmy dates probably suffered damage or even death to smaller specimens in the coldest areas of the city, north and west where temps were near 20.

Ed in Houston

 

 

[AnTonY]

Overall, the weather gods trolled Houston this winter; all the other years, the city stayed warmer than Beaumont, not this year.

With that said, I do feel that this winter is better for tropicals in Houston than 2013-2014, 2009-2010, and 2010-2011.

 

[topwater]

9 hours ago, AnTonY said:

       

 

 Ragnarok-proofing 

Lol. 

[Xenon]

6 hours ago, Ed in Houston said:

I am guessing that typical palms planted in the area such as queens and pygmy dates probably suffered damage or even death to smaller specimens in the coldest areas of the city, north and west where temps were near 20.

 

Yeah, even large Livistona chinensis are showing some tip burn here. Lots of melting majesty palms too. What I'm really excited about is how Bismarckia will fare...there's one off I-10 in Katy that was just starting to look good after miraculously surviving both the 2010 and 2011 freezes.