I received an email from a viewer asking if we had more snow on Thanksgiving than on Christmas Day here in the Metroplex.  I guess he was remembering the infamous Leon Lett slide through the ice at Texas Stadium on Thanksgiving of 1993.

But actually, we have never had snow on Thanksgiving. That one memorable Thanksgiving in 1993, we had a lot of freezing rain and sleet, but actually no snowat all.

On Christmas, we have had snow three times, in addition to one day with sleet and another with freezing rain.

Here are some links with more holiday weather information.

Saturday: Mostly Cloudy, Light Afternoon Rain-High 59

Saturday Night: Mostly Fair-Low 39

Sunday: Mostly Sunny, Windy & Cool-High 59

Sunday Night: Mostly Fair-Low 38

Friday: Showers & Isolated Thunderstorms tapering off by the afternoon-High 61

Friday Night: 20% Showers, Mainly East of Metroplex-Low 47

Saturday: Mostly Cloudy, 30% Showers in the afternoon-High 59

Saturday Night: 20% Scattered Showers, Turning Windy-Low 38

Sunday: Mostly Sunny, Windy & Cool-High 60

Sunday Night: Mostly Fair-Low 35

An upper level low and a cold front will bring clouds, rain showers & a few isolated, non-severe storms tonight & Friday. The rain should clear out Friday night and below normal temperatures will continue through the weekend and into early next week.

TONIGHT: Cloudy. Rain Showers & A Few Isolated Storms.

Low: 48. 
Wind:  N 5-10mph.

FRIDAY: Cloudy. Rain Showers & A Few Isolated Storms.

High: 60.
Wind:  N 5-10.

SATURDAY: Mostly Cloudy & Cool.

Low: 45.
High: 56.
Wind: N 10-15

SUNDAY: Partly Cloudy & Continued Cool.

Low: 40.
High: 59.

Thanksgiving:  AM Patchy Fog, Mostly Cloudy-High 72

Thanksgiving Night: Chance for Showers & Isolated Thunderstorms-Low 48

Friday: Scatter Showers Early, Cooler-High 62

Friday Night: Clearing, Cool-Low 43

Saturday: Mostly Sunny, Windy & Cool-High 60

Saturday Night: Mostly Fair-Low 41

Sunday: Mostly Sunny, Windy & Cool-High 61

Sunday Night: Mostly Fair-Low 35

Football Weather in Austin for UT and A& M Thanksgiving Night-

Slight Chance for a Shower with temperatures in the 60’s

Bedlam Series- OU at OK STATE Saturday Night-Partly Cloudy and Cold with temperatures in the 40’s.

High clouds began spreading across North Texas on Wednesday.  And those clouds will be evident again on Thanksgiving Day.  An approaching cold front will bring a slight chance of showers Thursday evening, with rain chances increasing Thursday night into Friday morning.

Here are the details on your holiday forecast:

Thanksgiving Day:  Partly to mostly cloudy, with a high around 70.  Wind: Light and variable.

Friday:  Mostly cloudy and cooler with rain showers likely.  Low 47.  High 55.  Wind N 10-15 mph.

Saturday: Sunny to partly cloudy and mild.  Low 40.  High 61.  Wind N 10 mph.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, breezy and cooler.  Low 40.  High 54.  Wind N 15-20 mph.

Late November is that time of year when the weather in North Texas can go in just about any direction.  Last year, it was definitely the first taste of winter. Areas from Fort Worth up to the north & west saw a light wintry mix and much of the area was under a freeze warning.  A Winter Weather Advisory was issued the Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving to the northwest of the metroplex with even a few slushy roads and bridges by Sunday.

Two years ago Thanksgiving day was quiet, but one week later we had our first winter weather event with a cold rain, freezing rain and even snow flurries.

This year will be much too warm for wintry weather, but a disturbance could bring showers & storms both Thursday and Friday.

The warmest Thanksgiving ever in North Texas was in 1965 when the high temperature soared to 88 degrees. The coldest ever was in 1993 when the mercury dropped to 23 degrees. November 25th, 1993 was also the Thanksgiving that will be remembered as the most winter-like. Freezing rain and sleet fell during an afternoon where the temperature never got above freezing. The day is forever linked to a fateful Dallas Cowboys game. That game was the only football game played in winter precipitation in Dallas.

The wettest Thanksgiving ever: 3.06″ of rain fell in 1914.

Have a great holiday,

Steve Mac

We’ve had an impressive string of beautiful weekends in North Texas.  You have to go all the way back to September 13th (when Hurricane Ike hit Texas) to find the last time any rain fell on a weekend at DFW Airport.  That could change today with light, scattered showers in the forecast.  Rainfall totals will be low with the heaviest rain east of I-35.

More importantly, this is Thanksgiving week when people’s thoughts turn to holiday travel.  The metroplex has certainly had its share of interesting Thanksgiving weather events; who could forget Leon Lett in the Texas Stadium snow back in 1993?  Last year, temperatures plunged to the 40’s and rain moved through the area causing travel problems.

We’ll avoid the winter winter this year with a high in the 60’s.  However, the current forecast has scattered showers moving through North Texas on Thanksgiving Day so there could be some travel troubles.

For some interesting statistics on Thanksgivings past in DFW, check out the Thanksgiving Day Climatology Summary at the National Weather Service website: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/CLIMO/dfw/holiday/dthanks.html

-Meteorologist Michael Hammer

A few years ago, I lived a life-long dream, when I made a trip to Antarctica.  I went as a tourist, on a ship sailing from the southern tip of South America, down to the Antarctic Peninsula, where I sailed among icebergs, got close-up views of whales, penguins and seals, and walked in the snows of Antarctica.  It was a trip of a lifetime for me.

But one of our former interns in the weather department has put me to shame.  Krissie Shiroma spent a summer with us, learning the broadcast meteorology business, and then spent 5 years working at TV stations in Sherman-Denison, and in Iowa.  But now, her career has taken a big turn.  Krissie is spending the next six months at the South Pole. Not just Antarctica, but at the actual pole itself!

Here is some of Krissie’s commentary after her arrival at the pole:

Hello All,

Here is a picture of my first weather balloon release last week. Now I
do the whole process, all by myself, every other day.

Another part of my job is taking surface observations for the incoming
planes. There are anywhere from 3-8 flights a day, so every hour we
provide an observation. We provide them more often if the conditions
are changing rapidly. 

Since every direction is north here, we work on a directional grid system so that we can still call winds N,S,E, and W.
The Prime Meridian is our north.

I live in a Jamesway, or Quonset hut. I can’t take a picture of it right now, because the cold killed my camera battery. It’s basically a big tent. You can hear everything – every cough, every sneeze, every conversation, every nose blow, and every person walking in the snow outside. There are 13 rooms in my hut – 6 or 7 on each side of the hall. Some rooms are double-sized. Mid-tent, there’s a furnace area. Some rooms have a wooden door, and some rooms have a tent canvas door flap or tent canvas on a shower curtain rod. Thankfully mine is wood. The huts are dark and quiet (for the most part), and the hallways are lit with red light bulbs so you can see your room number. The rooms are all different shapes and sizes and come with different set-ups. My neighbor’s bed sticks out into the hallway. If you happened to have had a carpenter living in your room before, you might be set up with some pretty sweet shelves, like I am. I was on the second flight into the Pole for the summer season, so when we got here, the place was pretty empty. But that first night, we also learned how inconvenient not having indoor plumbing is. Camping is sure fun, for about a week. And then you drive home and thank the heavens that civilization has provided you with all kinds of neat things.

The Bathroom. Imagine that every time you had to get up in the middle of the night to pee, you had to get dressed in winter clothing, walk down a 25 foot long hallway that’s minus 65 degrees, step over a 6-inch by 1-foot long snow mobile tread, and have a night light as bright as the midday sun. And when you were done, you had to walk down the same said hallway. Well, this is not ideal.

When it’s around -40°C/F and colder, this makes it super easy for
clouds to form. It’s so cold that contrails can form on the ground.
I’ve included a picture of a C-130 that just landed. And it’s producing
a contrail on the ground. I took this from the observation deck where
we can see the skiway(runway), north, west, and south. If you look
close enough, you can see the C-130’s skis. Okay, that’s enough
nerdiness for now.

I have a day off tomorrow. I don’t know what I’m going to do with
myself. The weather dept. has 13-day workweeks, so I haven’t had a
weekend yet. Unfortunately, I still have to walk to the Station if I
want to eat. And I’m always willing to eat.

Okay, that’s all for now,
Krissie

Here you can see some of the jet contrails at ground level, when the aircraft land at these extremely cold temperatures:

One of the funniest parts of this story is that Krissie’s family is from Hawaii.  But Krissie herself was born here in Dallas, and grew up in Richardson.  So she is used to warm weather, and this is quite a change of scenery (and climate) for her.  Good luck with your new job Krissie, and keep warm.

Chief Meteorologist David Finfrock

Sunday morning was the coldest since March 8th, 2008. DFW officially dropped to 34 degrees. The normal low is 45, but the record of 24 degrees from 1997 will stand for another year. Much of the area was at or below freezing. Some folks dropped well into the 20s.

Here are some other low temperatures from Sunday morning around North Texas:

Fort Worth (Alliance Airport): 31.

Dallas (Executive Airport): 35.

Mineral Wells: 25.

Terrell: 30.

Graham: 27.

Bridgeport: 28.

Denton: 27.

McKinney: 28.

Gainesville: 28.

Sherman: 32.

Stephenville: 30.

Granbury: 32.

Cleburne: 34.

Waxahachie: 32.

Hillsboro: 30.

Corsicana: 30.

Steve Mac