Cold Rain, But Not Freezing
In this land of drought we have enjoyed a long, steady rain across North Texas.
Not the best timing considering it has rained most of the weekend but nonetheless, it's great widespread rain. The National Weather Service put out this graphic earlier in the day showing a large swath of 1" - 2" rainfall over the metro and points south and north. There's been more rain since:
Here are a few of our rainfall totals from some of our storm spotters:
More rain is going to fall tonight, it'll last into the first few hours of the morning on Monday. An important role tonight will be surface temperatures and here is the all important forecast in this matter:
As you can see the freezing line stays to the west of our area. East of that line in the areas shaded in pink (and again, not here in the metro area) we'll see some sleet/snow but there will no accumulation nor anything sticking to the roads.
So the story for those in the greater DFW area: a cold rain Monday morning with the precipitation leaving by late morning. Temperatures will hover in the low 40s all day under cloudy skies. Winds will be out of the north at 15-20 mph and steady.
The morning commute will have wet roads but the bridges and overpasses will be wet NOT icy. We could see a flurry or two fall from the low clouds as we get into the evening commute but the wind will dry the roads overnight. That will be important because lows on Tuesday morning will dip just below freezing in most areas. But so long removed from any significant rain the risk of bridge/overpass problems on Tuesday morning are very low.
We usually get some drizzle fall with low clouds and cold air advection, if this happens on Tuesday morning it won't be drizzle but freezing drizzle and just a little bit of that goes a long way making problems. But this scenario is not looking very likely with the front as far to our east robbing us of the needed moisture.
COLD WEATHER AHEAD
Like I mentioned on Saturday when we had temperatures get into the upper 60s, I don't think we are going to be that warm again for the next two weeks. This is based on a quick read of the upper air patterns (in specific the 1000-500mb thickness) and the moisture levels at 700mb (potential cloud cover). Keep in mind that the average high this time of year is in the upper 50's so this weather shouldn't be a surprise. For this work week:
Tuesday: Cloudy and Cold, Highs barely reaching 40 degrees
Wednesday: Some sunshine for the first time since last Thursday, highs only in the mid-40's after a morning low in the mid-20's.
Thursday: Sunshine but only in the low 50's.
Friday: Another front, lows around freezing, highs in the low 50's.
There is another front that comes toward us Sunday, it might produce some rain. Right now I'll include a 20% chance with temperatures getting to the upper 50's. The next chance for some wintry weather looks in the middle of the next week with a potential of some freezing rain in the morning hours on Wednesday. Being so far out in the future that is a longshot that bears watching.
