Rain, Warm, Storms, Sleet... In That Order
It was nice to get all the melting going on Sunday. Temperatures stayed above freezing through the night so no worries about freezing stuff and icy roads. It'll be wet with light rain, fog and drizzle to start the day. Clouds will lift late in the afternoon as rain chances lessen. We'll get into the mid-40's; still a full 20° below normal for this time of year. Welcome to March:
What a blast of winter just behind us; our heaviest snow since last winter and a mess on the roads. We stayed below freezing at DFW Airport from Thursday night to 9am Sunday morning. We have at least one day of above-normal temperatures ahead, Tuesday:
We'll have storm chances on Tuesday, especially in our northeast corner. We are not expecting severe weather; at least the risk is very low. In our western third I expect a little sunshine; that'll get highs in the 70's!
The big story is while we are hovering near 70° on Tuesday afternoon, temperatures a full 50 degrees colder will be up in Colorado. That's our next shot of winter and it arrives Wednesday:
Most of the forecast models we look at have the front arriving just after the morning commute. We'll likely have more light rain around in the morning with a brisk southwest wind. Temperatures will be in the low 40's- likely as warm as it'll be that day and next:
All the forecast models agree that cold air will spill into north Texas and temperatures dropping to freezing sometime late in the day. Some are even colder. As the freezing line gets to the Metroplex in the afternoon a low pressure system to our east will start to pull moisture over the top of that cold air. This is a recipe for (heavy) sleet usually in these parts:
The forecast model I'm using here is the NAM; all the models differ on when the precipitation changes over to Sleet/Snow and where the heavy bands set up. The NAM has the rain changing to sleet during the afternoon. If this holds true I suspect the evening commute will be slow but okay- the warm temperatures during the morning will keep anything from freezing at first. As we all into evening though if heavy enough amounts fall we'll have slippery roads by evening:
Again, this particular forecast model has the sleet/snow moving quickly off to the east by midnight. We'll be in the 20's by Thursday morning so I expect what does fall in the evening hours will freeze by morning. Later in the day we should get above freezing so the evening commute could be much better:
We are back up to warmer weather by weekend as the sun comes out. Friday might be the first true sunny day in two weeks. It looks warmer for the week after:
