ALL / Austin, Travis County and South Central Texas Weather Update #11
Prepared by UT University/Incident Response Meteorologist Troy Kimmel
825am CT – Wednesday / 27 May 2020
… Round of Strong/Severe Thunderstorms Later Today into Tonight …
… Threat of Very Large/Damaging Hail, Damaging Straight Line Thunderstorm Wind
and a Few Tornadoes …
There is little change in my forecast thought since yesterday.
A trough, or line, of upper level low pressure, with the main circulation over north Texas and Oklahoma, continues over the central USA. As a smaller but dynamic low pressure disturbance.. moving east southeastward in the counter clockwise flow around this trough.. moves into our area from northwest Texas by later today into tonight timed with maximum daytime heating, abundant low level moisture and more than adequate atmospheric instability, we’ll see the possibility of stronger, potentially severe, thunderstorms along the IH35 corridor.
In the day one severe thunderstorm outlook, the NWS/Storm Prediction Center continues the “enhanced” risk (level 3 of 5) for severe thunderstorms for all of our area later today into tonight; the main risks being mentioned include very large/damaging hail, strong/damaging straight line thunderstorm wind and even a few tornadoes.
The latest high resolution model guidance suggests that a few strong thunderstorms will rapidly develop in areas northeast through northwest of Austin in the 3 pm to 4pm hour today with thunderstorms then becoming more scattered to our north and northwest before sweeping southeastward across the IH35 corridor between 5pm and 10pm tonight. The severe thunderstorm threat should diminish after 10pm based on this guidance.
Dangerous lightning will, of course, also be a risk around any thunderstorms.
Day 1 Severe Thunderstorm Outlook (7am Today to 7am Thursday)…
(Courtesy NWS/Storm Prediction Center)
In addition to the severe thunderstorm threat, we could see some localized nuisance flooding problems as these thunderstorms move through our area. Given the fairly progressive movement expected of these thunderstorms, NWS/Weather Prediction Center forecast rainfall amounts are still generally an 1 inch or less (isolated higher amounts possible), so we should be in good shape assuming we use common sense and remember to “turn around, don’t drown.”
Days 1-3 Rainfall Forecast (7am today through 7am Saturday)…
(Courtesy NWS/Weather Prediction Center and NWS/West Gulf River Forecast Center)
Let’s continue to be weather aware and listen for the latest information from the
NWS/Austin San Antonio as this system moves across the area this afternoon into tonight.
I’ll continue to monitor..
tk
Reminders…
I encourage everyone to be weather aware. Know, in advance, the difference between a
NWS issued WATCH, ADVISORY and WARNING.
Always have at least two methods of getting current weather information..
.. follow me AND activate notifications on Twitter .. @troykimmelwx ..
.. have your NWS All Hazards Weather Radio properly set so it can receive and activate
when NWS watches and warnings are issued ..
.. register to receive emergency updates at https://warncentraltexas.org/
.. make sure the WEA alerts are activated in your settings on your smart phone ..
.. go to the NWS Austin-San Antonio website at weather.gov/ewx ..
.. go to http://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/afos/retrieve.py?pil=warewx&limit=20&fmt=html
for a chronological text listing (most current at the top but note the page doesn’t auto-refresh, you must refresh page manually) of NWS Austin-San Antonio watches, advisories and warnings..