Freezing Rain Advisory/Severe Weather Threat/Poll Results/New Poll

A Freezing Rain is in effect for counties north of Houston until 6 am Tuesday morning. Here is the advisory from the National Weather Service.

MOISTURE WILL CONTINUE OVERRIDING THE COLD AIR AT THE SURFACE TONIGHT AND PRODUCE A CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION LATE IN THE EVENING HOURSAND OVERNIGHT. TEMPERATURES WILL PROBABLY BE IN THE 32 TO 36 DEGREE RANGE FOR MOST OF THE NIGHT...BUT COULD DROP TO OR BELOWFREEZING WHERE PRECIPITATION OCCURS. ONCE THE SURFACE TEMPERATUREREACHES 32 DEGREES...THE LIGHT RAINFALL WILL FREEZE ON CONTACT AND POTENTIALLY CAUSE SOME TRAVEL PROBLEMS ACROSS THE ADVISORYAREA. LIGHT ACCUMULATING ICE ON BRIDGES AND OTHER ELEVATED STRUCTURES SHOULD BE THE PRIMARY PROBLEM.

Low pressure is developing off the upper Texas coast. That combined with a warm front will warm us up on Tuesday and potentially bring some storms to the area. I think it is most likely that there will be rain. The National Weather Services is especially cautioning about waterspouts (offshore by definition).

The northern states are in the big chill. There is lots of wintry weather--see figure at right. Check your airline for delays--Chicago, Milwaukee and Minneapolis will be trouble spots.

Houston, overnight will be cold. Then, look for a rapid warmup on Tuesday. A weak front will dip temperatures slightly on Christmas Eve...Christmas morning will start in the 50s and end near 70.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY
Sarah said we should do snowflake. I know we did snow, but humor me. So, the word (phrase) for snowflake is copo de nieve, pronounced COH-poh day knee-A-vay. Every copo de nieve is beautiful and completely unique.

See how fun that was...and it can be even more fun to learn Spanish when you are watching our entertaining and award winning DVD, Let's Learn Spanish with Frank & Paco, from www.frankandpaco.com/. You can also order from http://www.venturaes.com/, www.dololanguages.com, www.carlexonline.com,www.thecuriousmindstore.com, www.amazon.com, www.bestbuy.com, and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/. If you are more interesting in a full immersion type product, go to http://www.frankypaco.com/.

AND MORE
Our poll about how you think our winter compares to normal is closed. That wasn't really fair for me to ask because officially we have just begun winter (remember that it began yesterday?). So sorry about that. Multiple answers were allowed: 80% of you think this winter is colder than normal, 0% think it is wetter, 20% think it is warmer and 40% think it is drier.

Just for fun, here are some statistics for November and December so far.
The average high for November was 73.3 The normal is 72.0. The average low was 51.6. The normal is 49.8. So, November was warmer than normal. There was 2.92 inches of rain--1.27 below normal.

So far this December, the average high is 65.5 and the average low is 43.6. We will have to have enough cool temperatures to get the average for the entire month down to the normal high of 64.6 and the normal low of 42.8. So, far there has been .90" of rain. The normal for the month is 3.69". So if there is to be a normal amount of rainfall for this December, we will have to get almost 3 more inches before the month ends.

I will revisit all of this once winter is over. Thanks for participating in the poll!

My new poll question is:
Do you think 2009 will be better, the same or worse than 2008?

Be safe everyone, Happy Hanukkah and enjoy the holidays!

Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman