ALL / Austin, Travis County and South Central Texas Weather Update 3
Prepared by Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
305pm CT – Friday / 17 January 2025
… An Arctic Air Mass to Move Into Our Area with An Initial Cold Front Early Tomorrow
with an Additional Secondary Surge Tomorrow Night …
… Much Colder Temperatures with Afternoon Highs by Sunday and Continuing Through Mid Parts of Next Week in the 30s to Near 40 and Overnight Lows in the Upper Teens and 20s with NWS Issued Cold Weather Advisories Likely to Be Issued …
… We’re Now in the Moderate Confidence Category Regarding Potential Freezing/Frozen Precipitation (I’m Still Thinking Snow at this Point for Our Local Area Given Expected Atmospheric Temp Profiles) Back In the Colder Air Beginning Late Monday Afternoon into Morning to Midday Hours Tuesday with NWS Issued Winter Weather Products Perhaps
Becoming Necessary …
Surface forecast maps and model data continues to be advertise bringing a series of cold fronts.. the first after midnight tonight then a reinforcing surge of colder air tomorrow night. Behind that front, a 1048 millibar (MB) surface high will build southward out of Canada into the central plains states. By Tuesday, a 1040MB surface high is forecast to be stretched from Missouri southwestward into north Texas then west northwestward into the central and southern Rockies with much colder arctic air over the southern plains states.
Since my last statement on Wednesday, guidance has become more confident in seeing precipitation in the colder air as an upper level low pressure disturbance moves across the area creating atmospheric lift with moisture being introduced from the south. This would primarily be in the late afternoon Monday through Monday night into the Tuesday morning time period in areas from the eastern tier counties of the Texas Hill Country eastward across our IH35 corridor. The forecast atmospheric profile is leaning toward this primarily being a light snow
event locally with more of a wintry mix to our south. With subfreezing temperatures expected, a light to moderate dusting of snow is certainly possible which could cause light to moderate driving impacts over our IH35 corridor eastward toward the Bryan/College Station area and even southeastward toward Houston. In addition, further south and southeast, note that the mixed winter precipitation (freezing rain/sleet) is more likely across the IH10 corridor into the Texas coastal plains east northeastward.
The upper air storm system will depart the area by midday into early afternoon Tuesday with partial clearing of the skies from west to east. Even so, please note that thawing of snow and/or ice accumulations, if any, on Tuesday afternoon will likely refreeze again Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning creating some additional issues for the Wednesday morning hours.
For planning purposes, here are the forecast weather conditions and temperatures for the IH35 corridor for specific time periods over the weekend into next week..
Tomorrow – Saturday (18Jan)..
Mostly clear. Wind chill values in the upper 10s to 20s by Saturday night late.
Highs in the 50s in the morning with temperatures falling closer to 50 F by late afternoon.
Low Saturday night/early Sunday morning 28 F.
Sunday (19Jan)..
Mostly clear. Wind chills remaining in the 20s and 30s.
Morning low.. 28 F early morning
Afternoon high… 41 F.
Monday / MLK Day (20Jan)…
Mostly clear early then increasing clouds turning partly to mostly cloudy in
the afternoon into Monday night with scattered snow showers developing (20%
probability by 5pm Monday increasing to 50% by 7 to 8pm). Wind chill readings as
low as 10 F in the morning and remaining in the 20s for the day time hours.
Some snow accumulation possible at night. Wind chill readings as low as 10 F in the morning.
Morning low.. 21 F (outlying low lying areas in the teens)
Afternoon high.. 39 F with temperatures falling back to near to below freezing with
the onset of precipitation.
Tuesday (21Jan)…
Scattered snow showers through midday (40 to 50% probability) with some additional
snow accumulation possible before noon. Mostly cloudy until early afternoon then becoming
partly cloudy into the nighttime hours.
Morning low 24 F
Afternoon high.. 34 F (this will be heavily dependent on any snow accumulation)
Wednesday (22Jan)…
Mostly sunny.
Morning low 19 F (outlying low lying areas in the mid teens)
Afternoon high..46 F
Remember that we will be getting additional shorter range and higher resolution model data coming in over the next few days and that will allow us to gain much more insight and confidence in the forecast tomorrow into the first part of next week. Stay tuned to troykimmelweather.com for the latest statements and forecast updates.
Remember, be a good critical thinker and utilize have your trusted weather sources (folks you KNOW and TRUST) including our colleagues at our local NWS/Austin-San Antonio office (weather.gov/ewx).
Our local Austin area media folks, that we all know, are reliable sources as well.
On the other hand, stay away from unknown social media folks that are more interested
in passing along extreme/”gloom and doom” model solutions and getting social media clicks.
Please remember, things can and will likely change for early next week. I will continue to monitor and, of course, let you know as things do become better defined… tk
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