Updated 130pm CDT Thursday / 28 June 2012

…. Afternoon Highs Down a Few Degrees as Upper Level High Pressure Weakens ….
…. Slightly Better Rain Chances for Saturday / Sunday with More Unstable Air Mass ….
…. Upper Level High Pressure Ridge Rebuilds Again for Next Week ….

On this Thursday… a surface high pressure area is located over the southeastern USA  and to the west over the four corners region. A trough.. or line.. of surface low pressure extends southward from eastern Colorado and western Kansas into eastern New Mexico and west Texas. As a result of this pressure pattern, a south southeasterly surface wind is prevailing across our area.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere, the area of upper air high pressure is located from the Tennessee Valley westward to over Colorado and New Mexico with a weakening of the upper ridge across our local area. As a result of the upper air wind flow, the upper level winds are light and easterly over our area.

Upper level high pressure is still situated overhead although the strongest part of the “heat dome” has shifted east northeast and northwest of our local area. As the upper level high continues to weaken the next few days, we’ll see a few more clouds and a slight drop in the average afternoon high temperatures.

By Saturday into Sunday, we’ll see enough instability develop in combination with daytime heating and available moisture to help widely scattered to scattered rain showers and thunderstorms develop.

By Monday and continuing through next week, the upper level high will rebuild and strengthen overhead so I’ll decrease clouds a bit and bring up daytime high temperatures again by the early to middle part of next week.

For Austin and south central Texas… tonight will see a mostly clear sky with lows in the 70s. South southeasterly wind. For tomorrow, mostly sunny with highs around 100. Southerly wind.

Have a good Thursday night and Friday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel

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