Austin / Travis County and South Central Texas Winter Weather Update #2
Prepared by Incident Meteorologist Troy Kimmel (www.troykimmelweather.com)
7:50 am CT – Monday / 27 January 2014
… Possible Winter Weather Event Late Tonight.. Tomorrow into Tomorrow Night …
Current Area NWS Watches/Advisories/Warnings:
NWS Austin-San Antonio has continued their lower probabilities (20% chance) for this event and
they mention the possibility of “light accumulations on bridges and overpasses” locally for tomorrow.
They have not issued any winter weather watches/advisories/warnings for any of our local area.
NWS Fort Worth has continued relatively low probabilities (20% to 30% chance) for frozen
precipitation and has now introduced the mention of snow and ice accumulations of about a quarter
of an inch for the Temple/Belton areas of Bell County and the Rockdale/Cameron areas of
Milam County. They have not issued any winter weather watches/advisories/warnings for Bell
and Milam Counties.
NWS Houston-Galveston has issued a WINTER STORM WATCH for most all of southeast
Texas including the Houston area/aerodromes.. to the east of our area.. for the 3am Tuesday
morning through 12 midnight Tuesday night time period. Notable is the fact that they’ve trended
down on expected snow accumulations across northern southeast Texas including the
Bryan-College Station area. The winter storm watch includes counties just to the east of our
area including Brazos.. Burleson.. Washington.. Austin and Colorado counties.
…. My Meteorological Thoughts ….
No real changes in my forecast thought.
We are continuing what is a low probability event… but could be a moderate impact event.
As much colder arctic air mass continues southward across Texas.. an upper level low pressure
disturbance is approaching the area from southern California and northwestern Mexico. By tonight into
tomorrow, as the low pressure storm system guides over the top of the colder surface based arctic air
overhead of our area, clouds will thicken and lower and we’ll see light precipitation.. in freezing or frozen
form.. develop over our area.
Given the latest forecast model data and NWS guidance, I’m holding on to my 20% to 30% chance
probabilities locally realizing that the greater precipitation probabilities and potential impacts will likely
be to the distant east of the Austin area proper. That being said.. we could still see impacts during the
morning rush hour Tuesday with light accumulations of ice and snow on exposed bridges and overpasses.
Be prepared that this is one of those situations where we may not be able to tell how bad or good the
morning rush hour will go until we get into the early morning hours tomorrow.
This weather system will move east of the area by late tomorrow night into early Wednesday; clouds
will break and precipitation will end quickly by the evening hours tomorrow. Sunshine and warmer
temperatures are in store on Wednesday.
That’s it for now… I’ll continue to keep you advised.
tk