Updated 845am CDT Thursday / 15 August 2013
…. A Weak Cold Front Washing Out South of Our Area ….
…. A Chance of Rain and Thunderstorms Through Tomorrow ….
…. Stable Dry Weather Pattern for the Weekend into Early Next Week ….
On this Thursday morning…. a weakening cold front extends westward from southern Louisiana across the Texas coastal plains around Houston to south of San Antonio then westward to south of Del Rio to near El Paso in far west Texas. High pressure is north of the front over the Ohio Valley westward into Colorado. As a result, surface winds are light northeasterly across our local area.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere… a upper level high pressure area.. acting like a “lid” on the atmosphere.. continues west of our area over the southwestern USA as a upper level low pressure trough.. or “line” of low pressure.. continues over the eastern half 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 northwesterly at 10 to 20 mph.
The cold front that passed the local area last night is weakening and pulling up stationary to our south on this Thursday. With the front washing out, we have seen a few southeastward moving rain showers developing early this morning. This will continue over the next 24 to 36 hours especially with daytime heating this afternoon as well as tomorrow afternoon.
By the weekend into early and mid parts of next week.. the upper air high will become a little stronger overhead 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 northwestward from the western Caribbean Sea to near the Yucatan Peninsula and the southern Gulf of Mexico by tomorrow with a high potential for development into a tropical cyclone. I’m still thinking, though, that the system will not be a big factor locally with the system ultimately moving northward into the north central Gulf of Mexico /perhaps then into southeast Louisiana.. Mississippi.. Alabama.. northwest Florida coasts/ by the weekend. I’ll continue to watch the system and the latest releases from our colleagues at the NWS/National Hurricane Center.
Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: High forecast confidence today into tomorrow then my forecast confidence returns to very high for Saturday and Sunday into early next week.
Have a good Thursday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel