Updated 915am CT – Friday / 12 June 2015
.. Clouds and Humidity Increase as the Atmosphere Grows More Unstable ..
.. Thunderstorm Chances Today Through the Weekend into Early Next Week ..
.. Guidance Suggests One to Two Inches of Rain in the Next Seven Days ..
On this Friday…. a cold front is moving southeastward from central Missouri and southeastern Kansas into west central Oklahoma and the southern Texas panhandle then northwestward through northeast New Mexico and Colorado. A trough.. or line.. of low pressure extends southwestward from western Oklahoma into west Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Surface high pressure is over the southeastern USA. As a result of this surface weather pattern, our local surface winds are southerly.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere.. a weakened high pressure area, acting like a “lid” on the atmosphere is now centered northern and western Mexico. An upper level low pressure trough extends southwestward from the upper Mississippi valley into the desert southwest. Another upper air low pressure disturbance is noted to our east over southern Louisiana and the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. As a result, our upper air winds at about 18,500 feet, are north northwesterly at 10 to 20 mph.
Our weather pattern locally continues to become more unstable as the upper level high pressure area settles more over northern and western Mexico. With this shift, there is less of a “lid” on the atmosphere overhead and is evidenced by a few light patches of rain that developed and moved northward over the IH35 corridor early this morning.
Today and continuing through our upcoming weekend and well into next week, our weather pattern will be more unstable. There’s a slim chance of afternoon or evening rain showers and thunderstorms today into this evening with better rain and thunderstorm chances tomorrow and Sunday and well into next week. With lots of Friday and weekend outdoor activities around our area, I remind everyone that frequent dangerous cloud-to-ground lightning will accompany any thunderstorms that do develop. National Weather Service rainfall guidance continues to suggest that we have the possibility of seeing up to 1 to 2 inches of rain starting through the next seven days. Clouds and those precipitation chances will probably result in afternoon high temperatures being down closer to 90 degrees for the weekend into early next week.
Have a good Friday….
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel