Updated 915am CT – Monday / 23 March 2015
.. Dry.. Stable and Warmer Weather Pattern to Start the New Week ..
.. Another Cold Front with Rain Chances Wednesday Night into Thursday ..
.. Sunshine and Cooler Temperatures Late Week into the Weekend ..
On this Monday morning…. a surface high pressure area is over western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. A weak cold front stretches from a low pressure area over northern Missouri and southern Iowa into southeastern Kansas northwest Oklahoma.. the northern Texas panhandle.. then west northwestward through northeastern New Mexico back into Colorado. As a result of this surface weather pattern, our local surface winds are light and variable.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere.. a general zonal (west-to-east) upper level wind flow holds across the USA with a weak trough.. or line.. of upper level low pressure extending southward over the eastern part of the country with another extending southward along the west coast. As a result, our upper air winds at about 18,500 feet are northwesterly at 25 to 35 mph.
After a cloudy and relatively wet Friday and weekend.. it looks like a dry.. stable and more springlike warmer weather pattern for the first half of our new week.
With a return south southeasterly surface wind flow, along with the sunshine, I expect that temperatures will be warming to well above seasonal averages over the next few days.
Another cold front is due late Wednesday night into the daybreak hours on Thursday. Widely scattered to scattered rain showers and thunderstorms may develop along and ahead of the front but the precipitation chances will decrease rapidly by mid morning Thursday as the front departs to the southeast.
Cooler and drier air.. with abundant sunshine.. will prevail Thursday and Friday and into the weekend.
Regarding my forecast, my local forecast confidence: My forecast confidence is very high through Wednesday. My forecast confidence, with the approaching cold front and rain chances, is high for Wednesday night into early Thursday (exact probability of rain, precipitation timing and amounts being the issue). My forecast confidence Thursday through Friday and the weekend once again goes to back to very high.
Have a good Monday….
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel