Updated  930am CDT Tuesday / 20 March 2012

…. Storm System Moves on to the East ….
…. Overnight Beneficial Rainfall Makes Large Dent in Drought Conditions ….
…. Drier and More Stable Weather Pattern Returns with Sunshine next 7 Days ….

On this Tuesday morning… a series of eastward moving surface cold fronts extends southward across east and central Texas with high pressure over the western USA building eastward in the wake of the fronts. As a result, a northerly surface wind is blowing across our area of Texas.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere, a deep counterclockwise rotating trough. or line.. of upper air low pressure is situated from Alberta in southern Canada southward into west Texas where we find a dynamic eastward moving closed upper air low pressure area. As a result, upper level winds are strong southerly across our area of Texas.

Beneficial rains of, in general, 2 to 4 inches (there were some isolated heavier totals to near 5 inches) have fallen across our area of Texas. The great news is that some of those rains fell in areas west of Austin which will greatly help to alleviate the on going drought conditions and add water to our highland lakes.

With the upper level low pressure disturbance lingering behind the front that is now east of the area, it is likely that clouds will continue in the cooler post-frontal environment into early tonight before skies partially clear with the passage of the upper air low pressure disturbance tomorrow.

Skies will be mostly clear with a more stable and drier air mass in place tomorrow into Thursday with return southerly wind and warmer temperatures late week through next weekend. A few more clouds will return late week into the weekend, but, for the most part, a partly cloudy sky will permit lots of sunshine through the weekend into early next week.

My forecast confidence through the seven day forecast period is very high.

For Austin and south central Texas… tonight will see clouds slowly decrease after midnight. Lows in the 50s. West southwesterly wind. For  tomorrow, after some patchy morning fog, mostly sunny skies will prevail. Highs around 70. South southwesterly surface winds will prevail.

Have a good Tuesday night and Wednesday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel