Updated 845am CDT Thursday / 3 October 2013
…. Clouds and Humidity Prevail ….
…. A Stronger Cold Front With a Chance of Rain Still Due on Saturday….
On this Thursday morning…. a high pressure area is over the western Carolinas and northeastern Georgia. A trough.. or line.. of low pressure extends southward from east central Colorado through eastern New Mexico and west Texas. A cold front extends southwestward from eastern Nebraska into east central Colorado then northwestern Colorado into Utah and southern 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 low is deepening over the western third of the USA. An upper level high is situated over Florida. As a result, the upper level winds over south central Texas and the Austin metro area about 18,000 feet above the ground are westerly 20 to 25 mph.
With surface high pressure to our east, substantial low level moisture is in place with late night and early morning low cloudiness. This pattern will persist through tomorrow with morning low clouds giving way to a mix of clouds and sunshine and above average temperatures.
By late tomorrow night into Saturday.. the upper air disturbance, over the western third of the USA, will move to west to east to the north of the area and allow the cold front, over the Rockies, to move through the area by afternoon Saturday. This continues to be slower than I earlier expected. We’ll continue to see enough low level moisture return for scattered rain showers and thunderstorms for the late Friday night to Saturday afternoon 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.
The system in the south central Gulf of Mexico has become tropical cyclone Karen with hurricane and tropical storm watches being issued for the US gulf coast from west of the New Orleans area eastward across the Florida panhandle coast. Current models suggest that this system 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 Thursday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel