Updated 130pm CDT Tuesday / 01 May 2012

…. South Southeasterly Surface Winds Continue Across Texas ….
…. Late Night and Early Morning Cloudiness with an Otherwise Partly Cloudy Sky ….
…. A Stable Atmosphere Means Little Chance of Rain ….

On this Tuesday… surface high pressure is centered over the southeastern USA. A trough.. or line.. of low pressure extending southward from eastern Colorado and western Kansas into the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and further south into southwest Texas and northern Mexico.  As a result, a southerly surface wind is blowing across our area.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere, a rather benign zonal (west-to-east) upper level wind flow persists across Texas. As a result of the upper air wind flow, the upper level winds are light to moderate west southwesterly over Texas.

Little change as predicted as the active jet stream pattern remains well to our north with fronts not expected to make much headway southward into Texas over the next seven days. There are some longer range models and predictions that try to bring a stronger cold fromt southward into Texas just beyond the seven day forecast period for the middle part of next week. I’ll continue to monitor.

Extensive late night and early morning low cloudiness will occur over the coming days with some light drizzle possible along the IH35 corridor. Otherwise expect a partly to mostly cloudy sky. The south southeasterly surface winds will continue with additional  return of low level moisture through the remainder of the week into next weekend with afternoon temperatures continuing above seasonable levels.

My forecast confidence continues high to very high through the week and through next weekend.

For Austin and south central Texas… tonight will see a partly cloudy sky with low clouds thickening after midnight. Lows around 70. Southerly wind. For tomorrow, it’ll be partly cloudy after morning low clouds. Highs in the 80s with a southerly wind.

Have a good Tuesday night and Wednesday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel