Updated 845am CDT Monday / 20 May 2013
Beginning the Week with a Stable Weather Pattern ….
A Round of Thunderstorms Tomorrow …. Severe Weather Possible ….
No Big Frontal Passages/Air Mass Changes over the Next Seven Days ….
On this Monday morning…. surface high pressure is off the southeastern USA coast with lower pressure over west Texas and Oklahoma. A cold front extends from eastern Kansas into western and central Oklahoma into west Texas and southern New Mexico. Given this surface pressure pattern, surface winds are southerly across our area of the state.
In the upper levels of the atmosphere… a broad upper level trough.. or line.. of low pressure is over the western 2/3rds of the USA. Given this upper air pattern, winds over south central Texas and the Austin metro area about 18,000 feet above the ground are westerly 30 to 40 mph.
A dry stable late spring weather pattern will prevail locally through tonight with one or two thunderstorms developing in association mainly with daytime heating to our distant northwest late this afternoon into tonight. Afternoon highs will be a little above seasonal averages.
The west Texas cold front will continue to move slowly southeastward and weaken over the next 24 hours. As it does so.. a passing upper air low pressure disturbance will pass southwest-to-northeast to our distant north by tomorrow afternoon through tomorrow night. Both of these features will combine with daytime heating as well as low level moisture and increasing atmospheric instability to give us scattered rain showers and thunderstorms mainly in the afternoon into nighttime hours tomorrow. The NWS/Storm Prediction Center has posted a “slight’ risk of severe thunderstorms with an attendant larger hail and damaging thunderstorm wind threat for the period.
In the wake of the upper air disturbance, a more stable late spring weather pattern is expected to take hold by mid into late week and then hold through next weekend and through Memorial Day. With this pattern, we can expect late night and early morning low cloudiness, otherwise a partly cloudy sky with above average daytime high temperatures.
Have a good Monday night and Tuesday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
Contact me:
tkimmel@austin.utexas.edu
http://www.facebook.com/troykimmel