Updated 845am CT – Monday / 5 May 2014
…. Southerly Surface Winds Return Low Level Moisture Over the Next Few Days …
…. Rain and Thunderstorm Chances Return Late Week ….
On this Monday morning…. surface high pressure is over the Gulf of Mexico. A developing low pressure area is over southwestern Kansas /1001 mb/ with a stationary from extending east-to-west through it from central Missouri and Kansas then northwestward from the low into northeastern Colorado and Wyoming. A trough.. or line.. of surface low pressure extends southward from the low into west and far southwest Texas. As a result of this surface weather pattern, our local surface winds are southerly.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere… a developing counterclockwise rotating trough, or line, of upper air low pressure is over the Pacific Northwest and extends southward along the west coast. The upper level winds over south central Texas and the Austin metro area about 18,000 feet above the ground, are west northwesterly 20 to 30 mph.
Even though much slower to occur than I thought it would be, surface southerly surface winds are slowly returning low level moisture to our area. We’ll see some late night and early morning low cloudiness beginning overnight tonight and continuing over the next few days with an otherwise partly cloudy sky.
By late tomorrow into Thursday and Friday, an upper air low pressure disturbance will approach and move into Texas along with a weakening cold front with increasing atmospheric lift and instability being the result. While I expect the best atmospheric lift to remain well to the north of the local area, widely scattered to scattered rain showers and thunderstorms will still be possible locally with late week rainfall amounts of 1/2 to 1 inch possible. The cold front will have a hard time making it to the Austin area with it washing out overhead of our local area early Saturday.
We’re looking at a return to a partly cloudy sky for the area by Saturday afternoon through Sunday into early next week.
Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: My forecast confidence is very high today through tomorrow night. My forecast confidence falls back to low to medium for the Thursday through Friday night time period reference rain chances and rainfall amounts which I am not real confident of at this point. My forecast confidence for Saturday into Sunday and early next week is high to very high.
Have a good Monday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel