Ok, so it is 80 degrees F in Texas

[Plastic Photon]

...and it is nearly Januarary. I have been living along the gulf coast of Texas for 15+ years and I can never remember it being so warm, not only that but so humid. I have been watching the local news and reading the local paper but seems as if no one knows exactly why this has happened. Christmas Eve last year it snowed, Christmas Eve this year I was chopping wood (for the fire place ) in shorts with no shirt.
Why is this? I should be freezing my butt off right now but instead I am wearing shorts. I am just curious to find any information about this.

 

[Astronuc]

...and it is nearly Januarary. I have been living along the gulf coast of Texas for 15+ years and I can never remember it being so warm, not only that but so humid. I have been watching the local news and reading the local paper but seems as if no one knows exactly why this has happened. Christmas Eve last year it snowed, Christmas Eve this year I was chopping wood (for the fire place ) in shorts with no shirt.
Why is this? I should be freezing my butt off right now but instead I am wearing shorts. I am just curious to find any information about this.

That's how I dress (and bare feet too) when it is 20-30°F (-6.7 to -1°C) outside.

Looking at the jet stream, it is blowing down the Pacific coast and across northern Mexico into Texas, rather than down the Rockies from Canada into Texas. Hence, N. California is getting more precipitation (and floods), and Texas gets warm weather.

 

[Andre]

That could be orographic or föhn effect. The air is forced up against the mountains. Due to adiabatic cooling it looses the moisture as Astronuc indicates. Then behind the mountains it is forced down, getting compressed and is heating up again. But the moist adiabatric expansion cooling is much slower than the dry adiabatic compression heating due to the release of latent heat during the condensation. This effect can easily be tens of degrees.

check this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/fohn_effect.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind#Local_winds_that_are_tied_to_specific_temperature_distributions

 

[dand5]

You should check your record highs, normals and stdevs before claiming it's very unusual. All record highs in san antonio are above 80 everyday in dec, jan, and feb. And it was 90 once on xmas in San Antonio! It was 100 in Feb once! Also December in the southern plains averge near normal in most places since it was so cold in the first half (was below zero fahrenheit in north TX) Standard deviations in the southern plains are probably more than 10 degrees F, so it's not too terribly unexpected when it goes above 80. On the other hand if it got 20 degrees above or below average in the PNW or coastal europe it might be time to start screaming the end of the world.
Arctic has been discharging in asia, but it is going to focus on Canada and US in late January according to long range models.

 

[Mk]

Has anybody seen the crazy snow in Japan?
http://news.google.com/news?q=snowfall+japan&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr

 

[dand5]

Yeah, it was insane. Seems like the death toll is pretty high now, which is bad. On the other hand mid 40's here and no snow in mid January, just the way I like it.

 

[smurfslappa]

Riiiight. Well it's february and it's still nice and toasty here in Texas. A few weeks ago in january my pits were sweating and I was blasting my AC in my car, when this came along...

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/sky4.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/sky3.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/sky2.jpg


All sorts of this undulating to the north, to the east, some crisscrossing and making grids. The jetstreams did it's awesome thing that day, though, and went way up through western Utah to Canada, and down through central colorado and dipped real low to Texas. It made an awesome superstretched U, and we got a nice cool blast of fresh Canadian air. So I got to thank whoever it is that's trying to hide the fact that we're heating up.

 

[Mk]

Was that a camera phone?

 

[smurfslappa]

Yeah, didn't have a real camera handy. They look better zoomed in, I clicked on the link and was disgusted with how they looked on the page.

 

[quantumcarl]

Riiiight. Well it's february and it's still nice and toasty here in Texas. A few weeks ago in january my pits were sweating and I was blasting my AC in my car, when this came along...

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/sky4.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/sky3.jpg
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e397/Bigpappadiaz/sky2.jpg


All sorts of this undulating to the north, to the east, some crisscrossing and making grids. The jetstreams did it's awesome thing that day, though, and went way up through western Utah to Canada, and down through central colorado and dipped real low to Texas. It made an awesome superstretched U, and we got a nice cool blast of fresh Canadian air. So I got to thank whoever it is that's trying to hide the fact that we're heating up.

All I know is that Texas is the rockingest state in the union! And being a lot closer to the equator I'd expect it to be hot all year round. I'd be more concerned about the snow flurries and I still think you guys are pulling my leg about them happening in TX. Dallas Rocks!

Up north here we're getting the Pineapple Express. You southerners attribute all the cold stuff to Canada and the Canucks attribute the tropics for the wet stuff. Old Canada finally built up a snowpack keeping us in drinking water through the next summer after some scary precipitationless winters during the last few years. Thank you tropics or thank you evaporating north pole, whatever... as long as the boarding's good to go .