ALL / Austin, Travis County and South Central Texas Weather Update #1
Prepared by UT University/Incident Response Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
855am CT – Friday / 15 May 2020

… Periods of Heavier Rain and a Few Stronger Thunderstorms Late Tonight into
Early Saturday Morning …

An approaching upper level low pressure storm system.. rather progressive (rather fast moving)
in nature.. will, based on the latest high resolution model guidance, produce a round of rain showers and thunderstorms for the IH35 corridor beginning around 11pm tonight continuing into the early and mid morning hours on Saturday.

At this point, the threat of severe weather looks marginal to me given the time of day – early morning hours – with the greatest risk being some marginally severe hail and straight line thunderstorm wind gusts as the leading edge of the squall line passes overhead generally around midnight and continuing for an hour or two thereafter.

The biggest risk for this event, given expected 1 to 3 inch rainfall totals (with isolated higher totals mainly east of the IH35 corridor into southeast Texas) will likely be some urban and small creek flooding in the more urban IH35 corridor areas with flash flooding possible mainly to our south and southeast where heavier rainfall totals upwards of up to 6 inches or more fell last Tuesday.

The good news is that the timing of the system means that there will be less traffic on roadways as most of the system passes. As a result, as long as we are responsible and remember the NWS slogan, “turn around, don’t drown,” the effects should be something we can negotiate safely. Remember, failing to observe flooding safety rules means that we might have to put our first responders lives at risk as the result of a bad personal decision.

I’ll continue to monitor..

Have a good weekend, all!
tk

Reminders…
I encourage everyone to be weather aware. Know, in advance, the difference between a
NWS issued WATCH, ADVISORY and WARNING.

Always have at least two methods of getting current weather information..
.. follow me AND activate notifications on Twitter .. @troykimmelwx ..
.. have your NWS All Hazards Weather Radio properly set so it can receive and activate
when NWS watches and warnings are issued ..
.. register to receive emergency updates at https://warncentraltexas.org/
.. make sure the WEA alerts are activated in your settings on your smart phone ..
.. go to the NWS Austin-San Antonio website at weather.gov/ewx ..
.. go to http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/afos/retrieve.py?pil=warewx&limit=20&fmt=html
for a chronological text listing (most current at the top but note the page doesn’t auto-refresh, you must refresh page manually) of NWS Austin-San Antonio watches, advisories and warnings..