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Very muggy air will heat up to some low and mid 90s this afternoon and in the days ahead, so make sure you’re ready to keep cool and hydrated no matter what activities come up.  And don’t forget the sunscreen!  Temps may even graze some upper 90s in a few areas at times, like we saw yesterday in Temple with a high of 98.

Afternoon rain chances hold very low (around 10%) Friday-Sunday and would include isolated/brief showers and storms at best.  The upper-level high pressurebuilding over Texas through the holiday will then dissipate by the middle of next week, allowing a disturbance to move into the area from the southwest.  We’ll look for better rain chances to return for the first days of June, the beginning of meteorological summer, after what’s been a mostly dry May.  As of today, by the way, monthly rain deficits stand at 2.66″ in Austin and 3.03″ in Waco.  Not good!

Be sure to check in from time to time for a look at the “feels like” temps and radar images, and for updates on the 8-day forecast.

Oil Disaster… Did the “Top Kill” procedure work?  Time will tell, but at least we’re told more mud than oil appears to be gushing out of the well site as this time.  Watch the live stream from the BP remotely operated vehicle.  If you want to track the oil slick, check out these computer models from the University of South Florida.

Enjoy your Friday and have a fantastic holiday weekend!

Chief Meteorologist Burton Fitzsimmons

Mostly clear skies allowed temps to get just a little bit cooler overnight, nestling into seasonable 60s in many areas for daybreak.  Abundant sunshine makes this afternoon even hotter than the last, into the low 90s, with only a slim 20% chance for a brief late afternoon shower or isolated storm.  With a strong high pressure ridge about to build into Texas, it’s looking more and more like we may have seen our last decent rain and that the month will go down in the weather records as one of the warmest Mays in Austin history.

As calculated earlier this week, our average monthly temperature sits at 77.8 degrees — exactly where we were at this time last year, to the tenth of a degree — tying for the 9th hottest May since 1850.

Futurecast draws in just a few speckles (or, as my colleague Adam Krueger put it, “freckles”) of green on the map at the hottest part of the afternoon then they die out with sunset.  We’ll call for the same tomorrow, with an even lower chance you’ll actually get rained on.

There are two flies in the ointment, as I see it.  Today’s jet stream movie shows a broad swirling area of low pressure off the Carolina coastline moving westward generally over I-10 through Saturday.  Expect some wet travel into Louisiana and possibly East Texas as a result.  In addition, we’ll watch for coastal or sea breeze showers to move up towards I-10, maybe clipping parts of our area with some spotty showers during the next several afternoons.

Flower Moon… Immediately after sunset tonight, the full ”flower” moon of May will rise over our eastern horizon.  Look for it to shine quite bright through the night, lighting up all the beautiful wildflowers across Central Texas.  As seen in the “Sun and moon” box on this page, we can expect tonight’s moonrise at 8:34pm.

Hurricane Aware… Predicting tropical cyclone development isn’t an easy task, but it’s made much easier by use of satellite and radar technology.  Not only can we get a “fix” of any cyclone location, we can watch the storms develop, determine wind speeds, sample cloud temps, and then formulate forecast tracks to provide warning in advance.  Scroll to the bottom oftoday’s Hurricane Awareness from NOAA to learn about tropical advisories, then take a moment today to review your family disaster plan and familiarize yourself with our tropical tools. On another note, the name hurricane reportedly originates with the Mayan god of wind and storms, Huracan.

Oil Disaster… Did the “Top Kill” procedure work?  Time will tell, but at least we’re told more mud than oil appears to be gushing out of the well site as this time.  Watch the live stream from the BP remotely operated vehicle.  If you want to track the oil slick, check out these computer models from the University of South Florida.

Enjoy your Thursday.

Chief Meteorologist Burton Fitzsimmons