(Note: I’ll be taking the long 4th of July Weekend – Thursday through Sunday – off. I will continue to monitor the disturbance over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico closely and will issue special weather updates as needed.. but, otherwise, this weather discussion will not be updated again until Monday morning / 8 July. Have a great and safe 4th of July holiday.. troy)

Updated 845am CDT Wednesday / 3 July 2013

…. Dry Summer Weather Pattern Continues ….
…. Watching an Area of Disturbed Weather over the Southeastern Gulf of Mexico ….

On this Wednesday morning…. a weakening stationary from extends westward from the New Orleans area to the Houston and Galveston areas to near Eagle Pass. Surface high pressure is located over Arkansas. Given this surface pressure pattern, surface winds are light northeasterly across our area.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere… a unseasonably deep trough.. or line.. of upper air low pressure is  over the eastern 2/3rds of the USA /centered over Missouri/ as the strong area of upper air high pressure continues over the western third of the country centered over Nevada. As a result of this upper air pattern, winds over south central Texas and the Austin metro area about 18,000 feet above the ground are northwesterly 20 to 30 mph which is very unusual for this time of year.

A dry summer weather pattern continues across our area. Overall, the atmosphere continues to be quite stable with general upper level high pressure area.. to our west.. still having an influence locally acting like a “lid” on the atmosphere.

Latest computer guidance is suggesting a return to a southerly surface wind and increased moisture and some limited atmospheric instability by later today through tonight and Thursday and late week into the weekend. Even so, I’m just not very excited by rain chances at this point so I will not include rain chances in my forecast at this point.

Daytime high temperatures over the next seven days will be at seasonal averages with lows tonight and over the next nights warming back to near average.

The tropics.. the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.. continue pretty quiet for now. A disturbance over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico is forecast to continue moving west northwestward over the next few days and only has a very slim chance (a 10% chance) of becoming better developed.

Have a good Wednesday night and a great long Fourth of July holiday weekend…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel

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