Updated 845am CT – Thursday / 6 March 2014

…. Sunshine ….
…. Clouds and Better Rain/Thunderstorm Chances Saturday into Sunday ….
…. A Little Cooler Late in the Weekend into Early Next Week ….

On this Thursday morning…. a surface high pressure area /1026mb/ is over northwestern Texas and western Oklahoma. As a result of this surface weather pattern, our local surface winds are northwesterly across our area.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere… an eastward moving trough.. or line.. of low pressure disturbance is over the middle and southern Mississippi Valley. As a result of this upper air wind pattern, the upper level winds over south central Texas and the Austin metro area about 18,000 feet above the ground are northwesterly at 40 to 50 mph.

Abundant sunshine along with warmer temperatures will prevail today through tomorrow.

By late tomorrow night, low level moisture will increase allowing for increased and thickened cloud cover. An approaching upper air low pressure storm system combined with a surface cold front will increase atmospheric lift and instability. This, with the increased low level moisture, will result in scattered rain showers and thunderstorms beginning as early as afternoon on Saturday and continuing through the cold frontal passage on Saturday night.

Some post frontal clouds and rain chances.. along with much cooler temperatures.. will linger into Sunday before breaking by Sunday night.

More sunshine and warmer temperatures will prevail for the first half of next week.

Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: My confidence in my forecast is high to very high through tomorrow. My forecast confidence falls back to medium to high for Saturday through Sunday (rainfall amounts and exact frontal passage time being the issue).. with forecast confidence going back to high to very high by Monday through Wednesday.

Have a good Thursday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel

Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel