Updated 845am CDT Monday / 26 August 2013
…. Early Week Afternoon and Evening Rain Shower and Thunderstorm Chances ….
…. Dry Summer Weather Pattern Mid and Late Week into the Labor Day Weekend ….
On this Monday morning…. surface high pressure continues over the southeastern USA and the western Atlantic Ocean. Another high pressure area is to our distant west over the four corners region. A low pressure area is over southeastern Colorado with a trough.. or line.. of low pressure extending southward into eastern New Mexico and far west Texas. As a result of this surface weather pattern, surface winds are south southeasterly over our area.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere… a strong upper level high pressure area continues over Missouri and the middle Mississippi Valley. Being on the south side of the upper air high, winds over south central Texas and the Austin metro area about 18,000 feet above the ground are easterly 15 to 25 mph.
Abundant low level tropical moisture.. off the Gulf of Mexico.. continues to move west northwestward across our area. This surge of moisture is what is left of a weak disturbance that moved through the northern Gulf of Mexico over the last few days. Daytime heating will trigger our best rain chances of the week today with scattered rain showers and thunderstorms expected. With clouds and precipitation in the area, afternoon highs will be down a few degrees today.
Rain chances will decrease after sunset tonight with the rain chances returning.. although slightly lower.. for tomorrow into tomorrow evening.
By Wednesday through the remainder of the week and through your upcoming Labor Day weekend, I expect that the upper level high pressure area.. to our north.. will settle southward to become more overhead. As this occurs, rain chances drop from the forecast. In addition, given the on-going drought conditions, afternoon high temperatures will rise once again with near triple digit temperatures possible once again.
Tropical storm Fernand has moved ashore into southern Mexico from the Bay of Campache and, according to meteorologists at the NWS/National Hurricane Center, there are no other systems in the Atlantic Basin (Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea) that threaten development over the next five days.
Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: High to very high forecast confidence through the next seven day period.
Have a good Monday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel