Updated 845am CDT Friday / 19 July 2013

…. A More Stable Air Mass Taking Hold ….
…. Increased Sunshine into the Weekend ….

On this Friday morning…. an area of high pressure continues from the Appalachians  southwestward into the lower Mississippi Valley and east Texas. As a result, surface winds are becoming southerly across our local area.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere… an upper air low pressure area is over northern Mexico south of Phoenix. A westward moving upper level low is over southern Louisiana. Between the two upper air lows.. a weak area of upper air high pressure is overhead of the local area. As a result of this upper air pattern, winds over south central Texas and the Austin metro area about 18,000 feet above the ground are generally variable at less than 15 mph.

A more stable atmosphere has become more established over the area in the last 24 hours as upper level high pressure strengthens. I will still keep an isolated rain shower and/or thunderstorm in our forecast over the next few days given the daytime heating combined with available low level moisture and weak westward moving upper air disturbance over far northeast Texas and Louisiana. The chance of rain, however, at any given location, is very slim so the chance of any given location seeing rain is very slim indeed.

By Monday and continuing through much of the remainder of next week, a much more pronounced area of upper air high pressure will become established overhead.. acting like a “lid” on the atmosphere.. and will result in a dry and stable weather pattern with no mention of rain in my forecast.

There are no tropical threats at this time according to the forecasters at the NWS/National Hurricane Center.

Have a good Friday and a Safe Weekend…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel

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