Winter Storm Threat/Rain for Houston/Definition of Severe Changing

WEATHER
Travel could be dangerous from New Mexico to eastern Oklahoma on Tuesday as a storm system drops snow. Winter Storm Warnings and Winter Storm Watches have been issued by the National Weather Service. (See figure at right and remember it is dated: effective Mon. Evening 12/28). So, if you are planning to travel in NM, north TX or most of Oklahoma on Tuesday, you might want to see if you can delay your travel until Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Florida will be the warm spot with highs in the 60s and 70s. Southern California and Arizone will have highs in the 60s. Cold spot will be western Great Lakes states and the Great Lakes area with highs in the teens and 20s. There will be snow from New Mexico through north Texas (including Dallas) and Oklahoma. There will also be some snow showers in the New England and the Intermountain Region (including Salt Lake City).

On Tuesday, Houston will be cold with highs in the 40s and rain during the afternoon. Rain is more likely on Wednesday and highs will be in the 50s. Thursday (New Year's Eve), sunshine returns with temperatures warming to the mid-60s. If you are out that evening, temperatures will drop rapidly (into the 40s). New Year's Day and Saturday should be beautiful with lows in the 30s and highs in the 50s. A shower is possible on Sunday.

SPANISH WORD OF THE DAY
Let's do hail or granizo, pronounced grah-KNEE-zoh. The size of granizo will soon have to be larger if the storm is to be classified as severe. See the AND MORE section to learn more.

Don't forget to answer my New Year's poll at right. And here's another resolution you should make...expose the young ones in your world to the joys and benefits of early language learning. Our DVD series, Let's Learn Spanish with Frank & Paco is a perfect way to get started. And, you'll feel good about purchasing it, knowing that it has won awards from Dr. Toy and homeschool.com as a best educational product. You can find Volumes 1 or 2 at http://www.frankandpaco.com
, http://www.amazon.com, http://www.bn.com, http://www.bestbuy.com, or http://www.ebay.com/. Our ESL (English as a Second Language) version can be found at http://www.frankypaco.com.

AND MORE
Spoke to one of my sisters-in-law about the snowstorm in Iowa over Christmas. She says it is being called the worst since one in the 40s. Conditions were so dangerous on Christmas that many people stayed home and only today celebrated Christmas with family and friends.

The National Weather Service is changing its definition of a severe thunderstorm effective Jan. 5, 2010. The change has to do with how large hail has to be in order to get the storm designated as severe. It used to be that a nickel size hail stone (3/4") was the cutoff. As of Jan. 5th, it will have to be at least a quarter size (1" diameter). The other criteria are winds of at least 58 mph or tornadoes. The reason for the change is that research shows significant damage is not done until the hailstones are at least an inch in diameter. For more on this change, go to:

http://www.weather.gov/oneinchhail/

Safe travels and Happy New Year everyone!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman