Updated 930am CDT Wednesday / 12 September 2012

… Dry Weather Continues …
… Good Rain Chances Late Tomorrow Through Friday …
… Back to More Sunshine by the Weekend …
… Another Cold Front with Chance of Rain Next Tuesday …

On this Wednesday… surface high pressure is over the eastern and northeastern USA. A warm front is moving northward through Texas. As a result of this surface pattern, a southerly surface wind is prevailing across our area.

In the upper levels of the atmosphere, a upper high pressure ridge, acting like a lid on the atmosphere, has weakened over Texas as a trough. or line.. of upper air low pressure moves eastward along a line from the northern plains southwestward into the southwestern USA. As a result of this upper air wind flow, the upper level winds overhead are becoming more southwesterly.

One more day of this dry and stable weather pattern with south southeasterly surface winds continuing and low level moisture continuing to increase. This morning’s early morning low cloudiness is a sign of that moisture return to the area.

A cold front will, in combination with the approaching upper air low pressure trough,   approach the area by tomorrow and will continue through Friday. The latest computer and manual guidance continues to suggest a wetter event. Scattered to numerous rain showers and thunderstorms will begin as early as tomorrow midday into the afternoon and nighttime hours and continue through Friday, Friday night and Saturday morning. NWS rainfall guidance is most recently suggesting that 1 to 2″ of rain may fall across our area with the passage of this dynamic weather system. Given the on going drought conditions, this rainfall will be very beneficial and will not create any major problems.

A weak area of surface high pressure will build into the area with slightly cooler and drier conditions as the cold front moves southeast of our area and washes out along the Texas coast late Saturday into Sunday.

Another.. stronger..  cold front will affect the area by next Tuesday midday into afternoon with another chance of rain showers and thunderstorms.

For Austin and south central Texas… tonight will see a partly cloudy sky with late night low clouds with lows in the 70s with a south southeasterly wind. For tomorrow, morning low clouds will give way to a variable clouds with widely scattered to scattered rain showers and thunderstorms by afternoon with highs in the 90s with a south southeasterly wind.

Have a good Wednesday night and Thursday…
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel

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