We all remember December 8, 2018 around west Texas. Lubbock received 10" of snow that day, starting well before sunrise. This year on December 8, high temperatures were in the low 70s. What a difference a year makes, right? West Texas is known for its crazy weather really at any time of the year. We see dust storms and severe weather in the spring and even in the summer. We get rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain and wind in the winter. We can even see all those types of precipitation in one day. That is not going to be the case tonight. A weak cold front will be moving through the region in the late morning. However, we are not going to feel the colder air until tomorrow morning.
You've probably heard hype about snow with this front. That is not going to happen. Temperatures will be above freezing and ground temperatures will be well above freezing as well. Therefore, we will not see accumulating snow, if it snows at all. The forecast is going to bring in some rain showers this evening all south of Lubbock. Lubbock is going to stay dry with this event. As it gets colder late tonight and early tomorrow morning, some rain may mix with snow flakes. That is all. There will not be slick roads, there will not be snow accumulations. It's that simple. Any precipitation will move out before noon on Tuesday.
I thought the above graphic is very interesting. This calendar shows official high temperatures for Lubbock for this month. We started off with below average temperatures on December 1. Since then, it has been warm. December 2 through yesterday, the eighth, have been above average. This is not December-like. We usually stay fairly uniform near average in December, but this year has been quite different. There will be some changes this week, but the warmth is still going to win out. Highs on Tuesday, the 10th, will only be in the mid 40s. We'll climb back up into the low 60s by the end of the week and weekend. So the high temperature roller coaster is only going to continue at least through the next seven days.
Another typical weather pattern for west Texas is dryness. Aside from a few areas getting some rain south of Lubbock tonight, dry weather is looking to win out for the period of December 14-18. So we're getting closer to Christmas and we will be seeing the dry weather, even though high temperatures will be fluctuating. The Weather Prediction Center shows that most of us will see a 30% chance of below average precipitation. This will mean that the drought is going to increase. There is just a sliver of drought left in Briscoe and Hall Counties, with the rest of us drought free. That will change this week with the dry weather taking control. Hopefully as we get closer to the end of the year, we'll get some welcome rain so the drought will stay in check.