Austin / Travis County and South Central Texas Weather Update #5
Prepared by UT University/Incident Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
1130pm CT – Wednesday / 31 December 2014
.. No Changes in NWS Warnings and Advisories ..
.. Precipitation Picks Up Across the Area ..
.. Above Freezing Temperatures Continue in the Metro Area ..
NWS WATCHES / ADVISORIES / WARNINGS:
NWS / Winter Storm Warning (Valid current until 1200noon Thu/01Jan2015)
Counties Included.. Blanco and Burnet and counties to northwest and west
Freezing Rain/Freezing Drizzle with ice accumulations of 1/10th to 2/10ths inch forecast
NWS / Winter Weather Advisory (Valid 12 midnight tonight until 1200noon Thu/01Jan2015)
Counties Included.. mainly western third of Williamson.. Travis and Hays counties
Freezing Rain/Freezing Drizzle with minor ice accumulations
At this time, these NWS warnings/advisories DO NOT technically include the greater
Austin metro area or the IH35 metro corridor.
.. My latest observations and thoughts …
At 11pm, temperatures across the Austin metro and IH35 corridor metro area include
37 F at Georgetown Airport, 39 F at both Austin Mabry and Austin Bergstrom International
Airport, 36 F at Lago Vista Rusty Allen Airport, 39 F at Austin Executive Airport 39 F and
37 F at San Marcos Municipal Airport. Temperatures have been holding pretty steady over
the last few hours. The freezing line remains well to the north and west of the Austin metro
area at 11pm and extends along a line from the DFW metroplex.. to just northwest of
Lampasas.. to west of Llano.. to around the LBJ Ranch in eastern Gillespie County.. to
east of Kerrville. Subfreezing temperatures are noted west of that line.
NWS Doppler weather radar shows patchy light rain becoming more widespread across the
area, as overrunning increases, with both Mabry and Bergstrom reporting a trace of
rainfall in the hour up to 10pm tonight. Dew point temperatures over the area average
around 30 F. As precipitation becomes more widespread over the next 6 hours and we
start moistening up the lower levels of the atmosphere, we will see some evaporative
cooling but I am still thinking it’s going to be really hard to get temperatures in the
Austin metro and IH35 corridor metro area down to near freezing overnight. Areas just
to the northwest and west.. in the NWS Winter Weather Advisory area of western
Williamson.. western Travis and western Hays counties may get a little closer to the
freezing mark by daybreak. It’s still too close for comfort… so need to continue to
monitor hour-by-hour trends overnight.
The bottom line.. this potential event has a fairly narrow window of occurrence between
now and noon tomorrow (New Years Day). Once temperatures begin to warm slightly
tomorrow into the mid to upper 30s in the afternoon, temperatures are forecast to remain
above freezing through the remainder of this precipitation event (or through Friday
night into Saturday).
Rain and even isolated thunderstorms will become more common by tomorrow night into
Friday and Friday night with above freezing temperatures as the main part of a more
vigorous upper air low pressure disturbance passes. The latest NWS WPC guidance
suggests potential rainfall of 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches across our area.
I’m still thinking that rain chances will decrease as clouds break in the morning into early
afternoon on Saturday.
Oh.. by the way… from my weather office to all of our law enforcement, fire service,
emergency medical technicians and other first responders and state and local officials
working this weather episode on this New Years Eve.. a very Happy New Year to each
of you (shortly)!!
tk