Updated 915am CT – Monday / 02 March 2015

… Warming Temperatures Over Next Day or So …
… Another Arctic Cold Front Wednesday …
… Another Round of Potentially Wintry Precipitation Wednesday Night into Thursday …

On this Monday morning…. chilly surface high pressure.. centered over the Iowa and Missouri.. extends back south southwestward over Texas. The leading edge cold front extends from northern Alabama and Southern Mississippi and southeastern Louisiana into the Gulf of Mexico where it turns stationary east of Brownsville and then extends into northeastern Mexico then northwestward into far west Texas east of El Paso. As a result of this surface weather pattern, our local surface winds are northerly.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere.. a deep upper level low pressure area extends southward through California. As a result, our upper air winds at about 18,500 feet are southwesterly at 30 to 40 mph.

The surface high pressure area.. centered to our northeast.. has settled south into Texas and is moving eastward on this Monday. As it moves eastward, I expect south southeasterly winds to return (on the backside of the clockwise rotating high pressure area) by tonight into early Tuesday. As it does so, we’ll see a fairly rapid warming trend for Tuesday into Tuesday night although clouds are likely to linger along with a little better chance of rain showers and thunderstorms. The best chance of thunderstorms with an attendant lightning risk looks to be late Tuesday afternoon through Tuesday night and Wednesday morning before a strong arctic cold front arrives by mid and late morning.

With the passage of the arctic cold front Wednesday morning into midday, there will be a rapid drop in temperatures with morning temperatures in the 50s to near 60 falling quickly into the 30s in the afternoon and into the low and mid 30s by the evening rush hour. An overrunning pattern will persist on top of the advancing shallow layer of arctic air with light precipitation likely Wednesday afternoon through Wednesday night with precipitation tapering off a bit during the day Thursday. It is likely, given the latest forecast guidance (and it could change!!), that parts of our south central Texas area could see freezing/frozen wintry precipitation Wednesday night into midday Thursday. All local interests should stay in close touch with the latest weather information from the National Weather Service over the coming day or so.

It appears that the overrunning pattern, with clouds and at least a slim chance of precipitation, will linger late week into next weekend as temperatures slowly warm just as we saw this past weekend.

Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: My forecast confidence is medium to high today through the remainder of the week and through the upcoming weekend as it regards the basic weather pattern and precipitation occurrence, timing and amounts. I have low to medium confidence of some type of freezing/frozen precipitation late Wednesday through Thursday.

Have a good Monday….
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel

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