Austin / Travis County and South Central Texas Weather Update #9 – FINAL UPDATE
Prepared by UT University/Incident Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
958am CT – Tuesday / 24 February 2015
… Temperatures Rise to Freezing and Above Across the Area ….
NWS WATCHES / ADVISORIES / WARNINGS for IH35 Corridor Counties:
None
OBSERVATIONS AND MY LATEST THOUGHTS:
At 1000am… temperatures are rising to or just above the freezing mark across the area.
Some patchy drizzle may occur today but the threat of icing has ended.
To sum up the event this morning.. law enforcement and first responder agencies have reported
mostly dry conditions in the last few hours. There was one report of some ice on the bridge at
MoPac and Parmer in north Austin very early this morning before 5am, but TXDOT responded
quickly and took care of the situation. An ice related 10 car collision was reported on US Highway
183 over McNeil in northwest Austin early in the 7am hour.
It shouldn’t be a big deal, but the final big chunk of the upper air low pressure system will traverse
the area tonight into tomorrow morning with increased precipitation chances and temperatures
cooling to 34F to 35F tonight and highs in the 50s Wednesday afternoon. No problems are
anticipated since temperatures are forecast to stay above freezing but I will continue to monitor
this very closely. Coincidently, this system is forecast to be a sleet and snow producer in north
Texas with very light snow/sleet accumulations expected as far south as Fort Hood.. Temple..
Killeen.. and Belton as well in Milam County in Cameron and even Rockdale. Heavier snow
total accumulations of 2 to 4 inches are possible further north and east where the Dallas/Fort Worth
metroplex has been placed under a WINTER STORM WATCH for late tonight into early tomorrow
morning. ABIA interests should note this possibility since more winter weather in that area will affect
operations at the DFW/DAL aerodromes and may result in additional cancellations/delays and
diversions tonight into early tomorrow.
A final thank you to all of our law enforcement, first responder and emergency management agencies
for their hard work over the last 48 hours in what has been, of course (and as usual), a borderline
winter weather situation.
This is my final update on this weather event.
tk