Texas 2024

[Robert Cade Ross]

Minor damage on one of the royals in  Manvel  our weather station on the fence recorded 35° 

[Xenon]

11 hours ago, Chester B said:

Hopefully the bananas and such still look good in the morning. Big warm up on the way. 

So how'd it go? Seeing reports come in of pretty much no damage...even the summer okra is alive. 

I'm not in town until Xmas 😑

[Robert Cade Ross]

Webster today. 

[Xenon]

Well I've been told my wall of melons is unblemished so all is well. We can still pretend it's summer 😆

[Robert Cade Ross]

19 minutes ago, Xenon said:

Well I've been told my wall of melons is unblemished so all is well. We can still pretend it's summer 😆

Until the 22nd lol I’ll gladly take a moderate freeze gives me some relief that we won’t get a wack ass freeze that kills everything again 😂🙈.

[Chester B]

36 minutes ago, Xenon said:

Well I've been told my wall of melons is unblemished so all is well. We can still pretend it's summer 😆

No signs of any damage to tender things.  My wife was up at 7 am and said there was frost on the grass, but didn't see any on the plants.

The big warm up has started and right now I see a day in the forecast that starts with an 8.

[Xenon]

30 minutes ago, Robert Cade Ross said:

Until the 22nd lol I’ll gladly take a moderate freeze gives me some relief that we won’t get a wack ass freeze that kills everything again 😂🙈.

Stop scaring people with the fantasy models lol 

[Robert Cade Ross]

2 hours ago, Xenon said:

Stop scaring people with the fantasy models lol 

It’s not fantasy when it’s within the realm of reality lol 

[Xenon]

7 minutes ago, Robert Cade Ross said:

It’s not fantasy when it’s within the realm of reality lol 

That particular run has Florida in the freezer for like a week. No bueno

But then again tomorrow's runs will probably do a 180 🤷‍♂️

[amh]

I have had multiple freezes this month, but the temperatures stayed above 29F until this week. Tuesday night was 26-27F and Wednesday night was 24-25F. The cannas are burned, but surviving and my tabasco is burned, yet still alive.

[Xenon]

You guys must be enjoying the Hawaiian weather? 🌴...before the festive holiday cooldown

[Chester B]

It's very nice but pretty breezy.  That light frost has the trees changing color.  I was beginning to wonder if it ever happened here.

Apparently yesterday while I was down in Pearland/Pasadena my house got some good torrential downpours finally.

[Xenon]

80+ last 3-4 days in the west Houston inferno. Finger crossed for 80 degrees Christmas Day 🤪

[Xenon]

Happy winter solstice! Only 70 days to go until we can stop looking at the cold forecast 😎😃 

Note the Houston peninsula in the sea of frost 

[_nevi]

Fantasy land but ... eeek!

[RedRabbit]

What a difference a few miles make.

[Xenon]

Advective freeze tonight...radiational freeze tomorrow night. Let's see if central/southeast Houston can narrowly avoid a freeze 

[Xenon]

All of DFW is already below freezing at 10pm, UHI can't do anything against 20-30 mph blustery north wind

 

I-35 corridor was doing quite well earlier, dropping faster now. Keep in mind there's an eastern bias to this cold front as well

Htown...less water moderation and more just delayed arrival of the front the further south you go

The front is just starting to makes its way into the toasty RGV

[Xenon]

28-29F N/NW/far W Houston suburbs, 30F at both major airports/most of the City of Houston, 32F in southeast Houston, 33F in Texas City, 34F in San Leon bayside and Galveston. 

[flplantguy]

Not too shabby, but nothing to sneeze at either. Looking like a normal major cold event with the usual spots hitting typical (please corect me if im wrong) temps. I hope it translates to here also so i get good observations in the yard. All the weird weather has distorted it i think. I hope everyone's protection efforts succeed!

[RedRabbit]

Our low was around 30f here in Memorial:

 

[Xenon]

8 minutes ago, flplantguy said:

Not too shabby, but nothing to sneeze at either. Looking like a normal major cold event with the usual spots hitting typical (please corect me if im wrong) temps. I hope it translates to here also so i get good observations in the yard. All the weird weather has distorted it i think. I hope everyone's protection efforts succeed!

This was an advective super windy event, the wind was blowing out of the NW 15-20 mph all night. In a more common radiational freeze, there is a much bigger spread in temperatures across the area...usually 7-10 degrees with lots of water and UHI influence. 

[flplantguy]

1 minute ago, Xenon said:

This was an advective super windy event, the wind was blowing out of the NW 15-20 mph all night. In a more common radiational freeze, there is a much bigger spread in temperatures across the area...usually 7-10 degrees with lots of water and UHI influence. 

Similar to here sounds like, but with the gulf moderating the advective part.  The lows look pretty good, im interested to see how the next few play out.

[Xenon]

24 minutes ago, flplantguy said:

Similar to here sounds like, but with the gulf moderating the advective part.  The lows look pretty good, im interested to see how the next few play out.

You can still get nailed if the wind comes directly due north like it has in some of the historic mega freezes in Florida. That's the setup for Miami to get below freezing. 

But yes fingers crossed for mild winter for us all 🌴

[ahosey01]

20 minutes ago, Xenon said:

You can still get nailed if the wind comes directly due north like it has in some of the historic mega freezes in Florida. That's the setup for Miami to get below freezing. 

But yes fingers crossed for mild winter for us all 🌴

The wind at least in my neighborhood is definitely coming straight from the north.  I think I saw it was colder on SPI than in McAllen today, so that might explain some of that.

[flplantguy]

Subtle direction changes brought a freeze to inland naples in Jan. 2022 too.  It takes the ideal trajectory plus snow as far south as possible to hit Miami, but my place it just takes a strong front and/or the arctic high landing directly on Central Florida to have a decent freeze.  Im finding it also takes a succession of fronts close together to bring a widespread freeze here, last year's polar vortex barely missed the last night, but the first portion was colder than the last further north.  Then theres years where the "charge" is lost completely like in a year like 2010 and everyone gets it.  The cross polar flow last Nov/Dec is a good example, i had low 30s and frost, where further south it was warm enough to go unnoticed.  Now would be different but still much warmer for them, at least ten degrees still.

[RedRabbit]

In a Houston, one interesting thing I’m seeing tonight is Pearland, specifically around 288, seems to have a nice microclimate. It’s about the same as the urban core. Points east, closer to the gulf, are colder so that doesn’t explain what’s going on there. 

 

Edit:

More broadly, there seems to be some sort of effect with the heat island reaching southwest from the urban core. It’s interesting to see places like Missouri City getting a little boost while the more urban area of Sugar Land near Town Center is a few degrees colder. 

The above map shows roughly where this is going on and presumably it has nothing to do with the Gulf. If I zoomed out you’d see areas north of 59 and west of BW8 are right around freezing currently while Pearland and parts of the Missouri City area have a few degree advantage.

[Xenon]

16 minutes ago, RedRabbit said:

In a Houston, one interesting thing I’m seeing tonight is Pearland, specifically around 288, seems to have a nice microclimate. It’s about the same as the urban core. Points east, closer to the gulf, are colder so that doesn’t explain what’s going on there. 

 

Edit:

More broadly, there seems to be some sort of effect with the heat island reaching southwest from the urban core. It’s interesting to see places like Missouri City getting a little boost while the more urban area of Sugar Land near Town Center is a few degrees colder. 
 

And that's still well within the Houston "bubble" with places like Sugar Land and Katy having their own semi-contiguous heat islands, go much beyond SH 99 out west and it's already below freezing everywhere. Katy Area probably has the the biggest recent jump in heat island, going from ~250k population to ~420k+ in the last 15 years (with no end in sight). Would it be even greater if it wasn't cut off from Energy Corridor/Spring Branch/Memorial due to the two reservoirs. 
 

[Xenon]

Low was only 30 or 31F last night, slightly above the 28F NWS forecast 😄.

Much of central and southeast Houston stayed above freezing with lows in the 32-34F range which is also a hair warmer than forecast. 31F at IAH and 33F at Hobby. 

Stilling clinging on to the hope of a zone 10 winter, haven't had one since 2019-2020.... Or at the very least an average or above average winter considering the 30 year average is the mid to high 20s. No more zone 8 nonsense anytime soon please 

[RedRabbit]

6 hours ago, Xenon said:

And that's still well within the Houston "bubble" with places like Sugar Land and Katy having their own semi-contiguous heat islands, go much beyond SH 99 out west and it's already below freezing everywhere. Katy Area probably has the the biggest recent jump in heat island, going from ~250k population to ~420k+ in the last 15 years (with no end in sight). Would it be even greater if it wasn't cut off from Energy Corridor/Spring Branch/Memorial due to the two reservoirs. 
 

Judging from what I’ve seen, East Katy and Energy Corridor are about the same. It seems to get a little warmer east of BW 8 going into the Memorial villages. Energy Corridor is more urban and the Memorial villages are relatively low density so I’m not sure why they are warmer. 

[RedRabbit]

I grabbed these a little late this morning. 

 

[Xenon]

Euro completely botched FL last week and now wants 3F in Dallas same as 3F in Minnesota 🤣

 

GFS has temps almost 30 degrees warmer (I like this one)

[ahosey01]

Brownsville next week, potentially... woo baby:
 

[RedRabbit]

🫣

[Meangreen94z]

On 1/12/2025 at 5:56 PM, Xenon said:

Euro completely botched FL last week and now wants 3F in Dallas same as 3F in Minnesota 🤣

 

GFS has temps almost 30 degrees warmer (I like this one)

I think the AI the Euro uses needs some work, it hasn’t even come close this winter 

[RedRabbit]

Interestingly, part of Pearland seems to be holding up well again. Not sure why it has a relatively good microclimate but it seems to be about the same as the Loop. It’s too many stations to be coincidence, something is making the SCR area of Pearland warmer.

[RedRabbit]

Texas City seems to have a slight edge on Galveston… The south end of Galveston Island looks a bit warmer than the north side. 

 

[RedRabbit]

2-3” of snow here in Memorial. How did you all fare?

[Xenon]

12 minutes ago, RedRabbit said:

2-3” of snow here in Memorial. How did you all fare?

~2" East Katy with a high of 39F for the last hour or so.

I'm terrified about what tonight brings...

[RedRabbit]

Houston’s urban core is holding up relative well now. Suburbs are mid 20s and downtown looks like it’s still in the low 30s (not visible in the image, but some sites are still around 32f). 
 

 

Texas City and the south side of Galveston Island are the warmest spots currently.