Updated 800am CT – Thursday / 04 December 2014

…. Clouds and Warmer Temperatures ….
…. Lingering Rain Chances ….

On this Thursday morning…. a surface warm front extends from a low pressure area over north Texas southeastward to over Louisiana and the Florida panhandle. A cold front extends from the low into west Texas and northeastern New Mexico. As a result of this surface weather pattern, our local surface winds are southeasterly.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere.. an upper level low pressure area is located over Hudson Bay in Canada with much of the USA in a rather zonal (west-to-east) upper level wind pattern. The upper air low pressure system.. off the west coast.. has weakened a bit and is located off the coast of Washington. 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 become dislodged over the local 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 next day or so as temperatures rebound back to slightly above seasonal levels.

Another weak cold frontal passage is seen by tomorrow night into the predawn hours Saturday with slightly cooler temperatures into the weekend. Overrunning moisture will continue, though, with clouds persisting through much of weekend and into early next week as another low pressure storm system and cold front approaches the area by next Tuesday.

Cooler temperatures and partial clearing is expected in the wake of the front for Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.

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 Thursday….
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel

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