WINDY AND WARM, RAIN CHANCES FOR THE WEEKEND.
WINDY AND WARM BEFORE SOME RAIN CHANCES ARRIVE…
This evening there are showers and thunderstorms in the Panhandle that are moving NE into Oklahoma. A few of these showers may make it as far east as Jack and Montague County in North Texas but they will stay a long way from Dallas/Fort Worth. We do have some high clouds moving into the area thanks to an upper level disturbance which is over west Texas now and creating those storms in the Panhandle.
There is a surface area of low pressure developing in Colorado. That low is forcing the wind to get stronger across Texas as south winds feed up toward that low. So it was breezy today and will be slightly more windy tomorrow and on Friday. This will increase the fire threat across the region. Currently there are no Fire Weather Watches in place. There probably won't be any issued because the humidity will be increasing. But with winds gusting to 35 mph the next couple of days, any fire that does start would quickly spread.
WEEKEND RAN CHANCES…
A large upper level trough of low pressure across the western third of the country will lift into the Central Plains this weekend. A small piece of energy will be left over in West Texas from this system. That should be enough to generate some widespread rain in West Texas Saturday. There is the possibility that this rain will spread into North Texas Saturday night into Sunday.
I look at several forecast models in the future and there is a great degree of difference as to how far east the rain makes it. The European model has the rain staying all west of North Texas leaving us high and dry this weekend. The GFS model has the rain moving across all of North Texas Saturday night into the day on Sunday. The question becomes will the rain make it here? Given the amount of moisture in the atmosphere by this weekend and the close proximity of the upper level disturbance I would tend to believe that we will see at least a little rain in North Texas Saturday night into Sunday. What we will probably see is a weakening of the rain as it moves toward Dallas/Fort Worth. Hopefully, there is enough juice left in these storms to hold together and bring rain this far east. If the GFS were to hold to its solution, we would get a very good soaking of rain on Sunday. Let's hope that would be the case. Right now I am going to keep a 30% chance of rain on Sunday.
But by far the western part of Texas will see the most benefits from this storm system. Out west rainfall totals could surpass 3" from tomorrow thru Sunday.
WATCHING THE TROPICS…
The models are indicating that a tropical system will likely develop near Florida either this weekend or early next week. One model develops this in the eastern Gulf the other develops it over the Bahamas. No models though have this system coming toward Texas. They all take it into the southeastern part of the US.
