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Don’t leave home with out your umbrella today:  our atmosphere is charging up for some good, drought-busting rains, starting with light sprinkles for the morning commute.

A surge of warm air from the Gulf coast will increase our humidity levels during the day, providing the atmosphere with plenty of “fuel” to work with as a large upper-air disturbance arrives in from New Mexico.  The storm is destined to move diagonally across Texas, providing quite a bit of uplift and instability, and that could spell stronger storms:  we’re in a SLIGHT RISK for severe weather through daybreak Wednesday.

Daytime sprinkles may turn to a few rumbles of thunder (50% chance) this afternoon but we don’t expect to get much heavy rain until after dark (90% chance.)  Along the leading edge of the storm’s cold front, a line of storms (or squall) will likely develop and sweep eastward towards I-35.  Hill Country communities could be impacted by this squall shortly after midnight, then we expect the I-35 corridor to receive greatest impact around 6-7am.  At the peak, sizable hail and damaging storm winds could come with frequent lightning and some intensely heavy downpours.  Creeks, streams, and waterways may not be able to contain all the fast-moving runoff, so please be aware of the situation and be especially cautious if driving after dark.  The strong storm line is predicted to move east of I-35 before mid-morning Wednesday, followed by some chilly breezes and colder daytime temps.  Lighter showers may continue into Thursday before the large disturbance moves east out of Texas.

While NOAA’s new outlook calls for the bullseye to hit East Texas with some 3″+ rains, our in-house computer model suggests some generous 1.5 to 3.5+ inch totals right here at home:

We expect 60s to return by Friday ahead of another weak/dry cold front for Saturday. Conditions look mild into much of next week as seen on the YNN 8 Day Forecast.

MONDAY RECAP…

DROUGHT UPDATE…

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Enjoy your Tuesday.

Chief Meteorologist Burton Fitzsimmons

Under total sunshine, southwest winds pick up the pace and quickly get us away from morning chill into some unusually warm winter 70s this afternoon.

Right now:

At their lowest around sunrise, temps dipped to a light freeze for a few including 27 at Jonestown:

Get out and play today because the comfy weather’s only temporary:  an arctic front blasts into Texas today, arriving here tonight with a bitter breeze for about 24 hours.

Winds right now:

Our in-house computer model suggests wind speeds around 25 mph gusting to near 30 mph overnight through daybreak Thursday, so plan on a “feels like” or wind chill temp in the 20s at sunrise.  Daytime 40s will feel more like 30s, even under deceptively sunny skies.  Winds will finally subside Thursday night, setting us up for the coldest of the week…

On Friday morning, we’re looking for widespread 20s to inlude a hard freeze for some rural, suburban, and especially Hill Country neighborhoods.  There’s one caveat, however, as high cirrus clouds could move in to “blanket” the area and effectively hold up temps a bit.  We’ll have to wait and see but, for now, prepare now for several hours of freezing weather Thursday night into Friday morning and a light freeze in many areas again Friday night to Saturday morning.

This might be the last cold snap for a while as the pattern of weather trends milder for Texas through the rest of January.  What about rain?  Looks like another disturbance brings shower potential our way on MLK Day to start out next week, as seen on the YNN 8 Day Forecast, and there might be some drops later in the week, too.

MORE CEDAR…  Allergy sufferers beware!  Today’s warmth will likely coax the mountain cedar trees to release more pollen and it could easily be spread across the area by tonight’s arctic blast of NW winds.  Expect cedar counts to be high through at least Thursday.  Take care of yourself!

MOON HALOS…

Much like we saw here at home around New Year’s, thin cirrus clouds (primarily made up of ice crystals) high up in our skies could soon return to make more beautiful moon halos.  Earlier this week, the beautiful phenomenon was photographed by Ruslan Ahmetsafin in northern Russia, where the thermometer read a frigid -37 at picture time!  As high clouds return to Texas later this week, keep an eye out for more halo development.

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Enjoy your Wednesday.

Chief Meteorologist Burton Fitzsimmons