Updated 800am CT – Wednesday / 03 December 2014
…. Warmer Air Returns by Tonight and Tomorrow into Late Week ….
…. Clouds Hold Tough with Rain Chances Reappearing ….
On this Wednesday morning…. a surface stationary front extends southwestward from eastern Tennessee and central Alabama and coastal Mississippi into southeastern Louisiana and the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. A developing surface low pressure area is over the eastern Texas panhandle with a warm front extending southward into west central Texas to the Rio Grande River near Del Rio and Eagle Pass. As a result of this surface weather pattern, our local surface winds are east southeasterly.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere.. a trough of upper level low pressure area is located from Hudson Bay in Canada southward into the Great Lakes states with much of the USA in a rather zonal (west-to-east) upper level wind pattern. A potent and dynamic upper air low pressure system is approaching the northern California and Oregon coast from the Pacific Ocean. As a result, our upper air winds at about 18,500 feet are westerly 25 to 35 mph.
Cool surface air.. in a very shallow layer.. continues to hold over the eastern two thirds of Texas. Given the shallowness of the cold air, low level moisture is overrunning the surface based colder air with clouds continuing across the area.
The cooler air mass is slowly becoming dislodged and will move off to the northeast over the next 12 to 24 hours as the surface warm front to our west and southwest moves back northeast of our area.
Even so, clouds will remain in place for the coming days. Given the increasingly moist and slightly more unstable air mass, we could see a few patches of rain or even rain showers for the time period as temperatures rebound back to slightly above seasonal levels.
Another fairly weak cold frontal passage is seen by early Saturday with slightly cooler temperatures into the weekend. Clouds will persist through much of weekend and even into early next week as another low pressure storm system and cold front approaches the area by next Tuesday.
Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: My forecast confidence is high to very high through the next seven days with precipitation chances and timing being the uncertainties for late week into the weekend.
Have a good Wednesday….
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel