Updated 845am CST Friday / 8 March 2013
Clouds and Sprinkles Return to the Area Just in Time for the Weekend …
A Better Chance of Rain by Tomorrow Night into the Sunday …
Strong Cold Front Due in the Early Morning Hours on Sunday …
Cooler Temperatures for Most of Next Week …
On this Friday… a surface high pressure area is over the eastern and southeastern USA. A deepening area of low pressure extends eastward from southern California eastward into Colorado and New Mexico. An associated eastward moving cold front is over southern California. Given this surface pressure pattern, surface winds are southerly across our area of Texas as the low pressure to the west continues to strength.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere, a strong eastward moving upper level low pressure storm system is in the vicinity of Los Angeles. As a result of this upper air wind flow, our upper level winds are strengthening southwesterly with winds over Austin at about 18,500 feet being west northwesterly 30 mph.
The surface high.. to the east of the area.. will continue to move eastward into the southeasterly USA and the western Atlantic as the low pressure area to the west continues to get stronger and approaches us from the west. All this will continue to result in a strengthening southerly wind locally.
Some light rain has developed with a better chance of rain showers and thunderstorms by tomorrow night into Sunday as the atmosphere becomes more unstable and atmospheric lift increases as a cold front approaches and then moves across the area.
The NWS/Storm Prediction Center has areas along and west of the IH35 corridor in a “slight” risk for severe thunderstorms, with the main risks being larger hail and damaging straight line thunderstorm winds for the 12 midnight to 6am time frame Sunday morning.
The cold front will move through the area early Sunday morning with the best chance of rain showers and thunderstorms in the 6am to 10am time frame. Current NWS rainfall guidance suggests that we could see around 1/2 to 3/4 inch of rain in the Saturday into Sunday time frame.
Slightly cooler air will prevail along with drier air and plenty of sunshine in the wake of the front for the first half of next week.
Have a good Friday night and Weekend…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel