Updated 800am CT – Tuesday / 06 January 2015
…. Warmer Today ….
…. More Arctic Air into Texas Early Tomorrow and Again over the Weekend ….
…. Clouds and Rain Chances with a Warm Up Late Week into the Weekend ….
On this Tuesday morning…. high pressure is to our east over Mississippi and Louisiana. Another southward moving cold front is over the Red River country of north Texas and southern Oklahoma. Behind the front, arctic high pressure is building southward over South Dakota.. Nebraska and Kansas. As a result of this surface weather pattern, our local surface winds are southwesterly.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere.. a broad upper level trough.. or line.. of low pressure is centered from Hudson Bay southward over the eastern half of the USA. As a result, our upper air winds at about 18,500 feet are west northwesterly at 10 to 20 mph.
The surface high pressure area, to our east, will continue to move eastward pretty quickly today into tonight with southwesterly winds producing a pronounced warming trend.
The next strong arctic cold front will move through the area in the predawn hours tomorrow morning with high pressure settling into the area.. with much colder temperatures.. for tomorrow into tomorrow night. Temperatures will be much below average tomorrow into the latter part of the week into the weekend with a hard freeze (think: pets, pipes and plants!!) likely Wednesday night into Thursday morning.
An approaching upper level low pressure disturbance.. from the west.. will approach the area by Thursday into Friday and into the weekend with an overrunning cloud and rain pattern setting up across the area.
In the wake of the upper air disturbance, another reinforcement of modified arctic air.. not quite as cold.. is due by early Sunday with sunshine returning to the area for Sunday into the early part of next week.
Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: My forecast confidence is very high through Wednesday and Wednesday night with my confidence falling back to medium for Thursday through the weekend with rain chances, timing and amounts being the issues.
I’ll be taking off a few more vacation days Wednesday, 7 January 2015 through Sunday / 11 January 2015… in my absence, a link to NWS products/forecasts will be placed on the web page.
Have a good Tuesday….
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel