Austin / Travis County and South Central Texas Weather Statement #1
Prepared by UT University/Incident Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
950am CT – Saturday / 30 December 2017
.. Arctic Outbreak to Ring in the New Year ..
.. Some Very Light Freezing Drizzle Possible Sunday Evening in Some Areas to Our West ..
.. A Prolonged Period of Near Freezing or Below Temperatures Sunday Night into Wednesday
with Hard Freezes Overnight Hours Monday Night and Tuesday Night ..
As this much colder air arrives, remember people, pets, pipes and plants…
Early on this Saturday, a southward moving surface arctic cold front extends from southeast
Oklahoma to just northwest of the DFW Metroplex then southwestward to Midland then north
northwestward into eastern New Mexico. While temperatures ahead of the front locally have risen
into the 50s in our area this morning and are expected near 60by this afternoon, temperatures
behind the front are falling below freezing from southeastern Oklahoma southwestward to south of
Wichita Falls to between Midland and Lubbock. To the north of this.. temperatures have fallen into
the teens from the Texas panhandle northeastward through western and northern Oklahoma. Single
digit temperatures currently cover most of Kansas with temperatures near 0 degrees over northwest
Kansas.
As the colder air filters southward tonight into Sunday, some light drizzle will develop back in the
southward moving colder air. The question remains whether or not the drizzle will hang around long
enough for the temperatures to fall below freezing and the answer is maybe but mostly in areas over the Texas
Hill Country to our west and not so much for the IH35 corridor counties and eastward. Is this a
guarantee? Heck, no, it’s not (besides the fact that I’ve ve never offered a guarantee in a forecast in my life!!),
but that is as much as we can tell you at this point. Let me make it clear that the probability of precipitation at
any given location around the area is about 20% so the best way to describe this event is as a “very low
probability event with high potential impacts” in the areas where it develops – which won’t be many with the
overall 20% chance of precipitation. As I see it now, some slick spots could develop on bridges and overpasses
Sunday evening in areas to our immediate west and northwest but, as precipitation tapers off by mid evening Sunday,
even these will go away quickly as additional colder and much drier air arrives late Sunday night into Monday morning.
As we all are, our colleagues at the NWS Austin-San Antonio are also monitoring this forecast continuously and all of us
will do our best to keep you advised of any changes in the forecast.
Even if no freezing precipitation occurs, this incoming air mass will produce a prolonged period of
near to well below freezing temperatures for the first few days of the new year with highs only in the
30s and lows in the upper teens and 20s over central and south central Texas as clouds break. As a
result, I’ll remind you again to remember “people, pets, pipes and plants.”
I’ll continue to keep you updated.. tk