Updated 915am CT – Friday / 10 April 2015
.. Rain Chances Through the Weekend ..
.. Cooler Today… Another Cold Front Due on Monday ..
.. More Rain Chances for Next Week ..
On this Friday…. a cold front extends southwestward from middle Tennessee into central Mississippi and Louisiana into the Texas coastal plains then to near Laredo and northern Mexico and then northwestward into far southwest Texas. High pressure.. behind the front.. is situated over western Kansas. Surface high pressure is off the southeastern seaboard of the USA. As a result of this surface weather pattern, behind north of the frontal boundary, our local surface winds are northerly.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere.. a trough.. or line.. of upper level low pressure is situated from the western Great Lakes into the middle Mississippi Valley. Another low pressure disturbance is located well off the west coast of southern and central California. As a result, our upper air winds at about 18,500 feet are southwesterly at 30 to 40 mph.
The cold front passed through the local area in the predawn hours this morning with shallow wedge of surface based cooler air prevailing.
The layer of cooler surface based air, with the passing of the last part of the upper air low pressure disturbance, is causing an overrunning pattern with clouds and scattered rain showers and thunderstorms, with an associated cloud to-ground lightning risk, prevailing on this Friday morning. Precipitation should taper off.. with the passage of the disturbance.. by later this afternoon and tonight even though clouds will persist. Temperatures today, with the cooler based surface air in place, will be well below seasonal averages.
The frontal boundary.. to our south.. will weaken and wash out and return back northward as a warm front tonight into early Saturday with increased rain chances again tomorrow through tomorrow night. Any thunderstorms that do occur will produce an associated dangerous cloud-to-ground lightning risk.
By Sunday, a stronger upper air low pressure disturbance will move through Texas with rain and thunderstorm chances increasing even further with an associated cloud to-ground lightning risk. The NWS Storm Prediction Center has posted a “slight” risk of severe thunderstorms for areas south of Austin.
In the wake of the Sunday disturbance, another surface cold front will attempt to move southward across the area on Monday morning with rain chances tapering off a bit by Monday night into Tuesday and Wednesday.
Another.. potentially stronger.. cold front is forecast to cross the area by early next Thursday morning with an increased chance of rain showers and thunderstorms, and an associated dangerous cloud-to-ground lightning risk, again.
Overall.. it looks rather wet locally over the next seven days with rain chances on and off over much of the forecast period with the potential of 1 to 3 inches of rain over the area over next seven days with heaviest rainfall along and east of the IH35 corridor.
Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: My forecast confidence is medium to high through the weekend with precipitation timing and amounts being the main issue. My forecast confidence is high for the early part of next week with my confidence falling back to low to medium for the middle and latter part of next week as it regards frontal passage times, precipitation probabilities and amounts being the issues.
Have a good Friday….
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel