Weekly Climate Summary: 11/19/23-11/25/23

Climate in the News:

The current El Niño event continues to be the topic of interest in terms of how cold and wet this upcoming winter will be. Earlier this month, the El Niño met the threshold for being considered a “strong” event. This is demonstrated in the graphic below showing how the sea surface temperature has risen well above the El Niño threshold. Although the strength of the event is not necessarily linked to the strength of the impacts, it does shed light on the likelihood of the possible impacts occurring at all. In general, El Niños are linked to colder and slightly wetter conditions in Texas. Therefore, the stronger this event is, the more likely it is for Texas to have a colder and wetter winter than normal. 

Source: climate.gov

Weather Synopsis:

Each week we have been seeing a cold front or two thanks to the subtropical jet stream pushing low pressure systems across the middle United States. We missed this jet stream during the summer as it was too far north to make an impact on the blazing heat we experienced. As we move into the fall and winter, this jet migrates back south and is able to impact Texas weather yet again. That was indeed the case this past week as we saw a cold front impact the state early in the week. Below is an image of the jet stream seen in the upper atmosphere on November 20th. The colored region over Texas is where the jet stream is located and it correlates with the surface cold front as it was pushed east across the state. 

Source: Storm Prediction Center

Temperature:

Temperatures across Texas were cooler than normal last week. Most of the temperature averages were between 40 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit. The warmest portions had temperatures above 65 degrees with the highest average recorded at 66.5 degrees in Cameron County. The coldest areas of the state had averages near 40 degrees with the coolest weekly average recorded at 39.7 degrees in Dallam County. Overall, temperatures were up to three degrees below normal across Texas.

Precipitation:

Roughly half of the state saw some measurable precipitation this past week. Rain accumulations were small with only a few areas seeing above a half inch in total. The highest accumulation for the week was recorded at 1.60” in Shelby County.

Records/Extremes:

• November 19 - Statewide - 8 stations saw their lowest daily minimum temperature on record.
• November 20 - Statewide - 17 stations saw their lowest daily minimum temperature on record.