Updated 845am CDT Tuesday / 13 August 2013
…. A Weak Cold Front Tomorrow Night into Late Week ….
…. A Slim Chance of Rain Beginning Tomorrow Night ….
…. Stable Dry Weather Pattern for the Weekend into Next Week ….
On this Tuesday morning…. a southward moving cold front extends southwestward from Kentucky into Arkansas and Oklahoma back northwestward back into Colorado. High pressure is over the Gulf of Mexico and over southern Colorado. A trough.. or line.. of low pressure extends southwestward over west Texas. As a result, surface winds are southerly across our local area.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere… a upper level high pressure area.. acting like a “lid” on the atmosphere.. is over the southern plains and southeastern USA. A strong upper level low pressure area extends from east of Hudson Bay into the Great Lakes region with another one over the Pacific northwest with a trough.. or line.. of low pressure along the west coast of the USA. 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 generally light and variable.
The summer weather pattern continues across Texas with the upper level high overhead. Clouds will at a premium with afternoon high temperatures continuing well above seasonal average.
By late tomorrow afternoon into tomorrow night and Thursday, a weakening cold front will settle southward into the area from north Texas. The front will produce atmospheric lift with a moist and somewhat more unstable in place; as a result, I expect widely scattered rain shower and thunderstorm activity as the front washes out overhead of south central Texas. The front will wash out and return northward as a weak cold front by Saturday. Anytime during this period, we’ll see those slim rain chances linger.
Over the weekend into early next week.. the upper air high will become a little stronger so I see a dry stable weather pattern for that part of the extended forecast period.
Based on the latest information from the NWS/National Hurricane Center, a tropical wave continues westward from the central Caribbean Sea and will move to near the Yucatan Peninsula and the southern Gulf of Mexico by mid into late week. Current indications are that the system may become better organized by then, but, based on what I’m seeing, the upper level high pressure area over Texas and southeast USA will keep the system moving westward into southern Mexico rather than northward toward the US Gulf Coast or the Texas coast.
Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: Very high forecast confidence today into tomorrow.. then dropping to high forecast confidence by the evening rush hour tomorrow into tomorrow night into Thursday and Friday with the rain chances with the weak cold front. My forecast confidence returns to very high for Saturday and Sunday into Monday.
Have a good Tuesday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel