Updated 845am CDT Wednesday / 2 October 2013

…. Clouds and Humidity Prevail ….
…. A Stronger Cold Front With a Chance of Rain Still Due By Late Friday Night ….

On this Wednesday morning…. a high pressure area is over the western Carolinas and northeastern Georgia. A trough.. or line.. of low pressure extends southward from eastern Colorado through eastern New Mexico and west Texas. A cold front extends southwestward from southeastern Wyoming into central Utah and Nevada. As a result of this surface weather pattern, surface winds are south southeasterly over our area.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere… an upper level high is over western Mexico and the Baja Peninsula with a stronger area of upper air low pressure over the northwestern USA. An upper level low has moved northward from the Gulf of Mexico into southeastern Arkansas. As a result, the upper level winds over south central Texas and the Austin metro area about 18,000 feet above the ground are light northerly.

With surface high pressure to our east, our south southeasterly surface winds have resulted in the return of substantial low level moisture with late night and early morning low cloudiness.. patchy fog and drizzle.. and even a few rapidly moving rain showers this morning. This pattern will persist over the next few days with morning low clouds and patchy fog and drizzle giving way to a mix of clouds and sunshine and above average temperatures.

There’s not much change in my thoughts regarding a weather change by the weekend. By late Friday into Friday night.. the upper air disturbance, over the northwestern USA, will move to west to east to the north of the area and allow the cold front, over the northern Rockies, to move through the area by midday Saturday. This is a tad slower than we earlier expected. We’ll continue to see enough low level moisture return for scattered rain showers and thunderstorms for the 12 midnight Friday night to 12 noon Saturday time period as the front moves through our area. However, I don’t expect the precipitation coverage and amounts that we saw this last weekend due to the fast forward movement of this stronger cold front. At this point, I’m going to 1/4 to 1/2 inch rainfall totals with the passage of this system.

Once the front passes through by Saturday afternoon, skies will clear with cooler temperatures and less humid conditions for the remainder of the weekend and into early next week.

We still have the disturbed area of weather over the southwestern Caribbean Sea showing potential development over the next few days. Current models suggest anything that does develop will ultimately end up well to the east of our local area in the central and eastern Gulf and into the southeastern USA. At this point, this system is not expected to affect Texas.

Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: High to very high forecast confidence through the next seven day forecast period.

Have a good Wednesday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel