Scott_Prinsen's Blog

A few spotty showers were seen again today, but primarily from Austin westward to the Hill Country. Some of the rain totals were near an inch in places like Llano, Burnet, and around Lake Travis.  Most other locations that got rain saw much less than that.

A weak disturbance, combined with a broad area of low pressure over Southwest Texas helped to bring us the widely scattered rains today, but these features will be just about gone tomorrow.

Look for drier and warmer weather for the rest of the week, with maybe a few showers or storms Thursday into Friday. Highs will be in the mid to upper 90s this week.

We are watching an area of lower pressure in the southeastern Caribbean for signs of tropical development. It is heading northwest, and the National Hurricane Center does give this area of unsettled weather a medium chance of developing into a tropical depression in the next few days.

Low pressure over Southwest Texas continues to bring clouds and some rain to Central Texas. This low is forecast to weaken and move into northern Mexico tomorrow, so rain chances will be decreasing locally.

Hot and dry weather settles back in for the first half of next week as we remain on the dry side of Tropical Storm Fay. There are some increases in rain chances toward the end of the week as another upper level area of low pressure may form over the Rio Grande or northern Mexico.

Expect highs to be near normal... meaning mid 90s... for the week ahead.

A stationary front over South Texas, and an approaching upper-level storm system will combine over Texas this week to bring some significant rain to the area. This will be a slow-moving system, allowing our area to see high rain chances for the first half of the work week. It appears that Tuesday into Wednesday will yield the best totals... with the potential of seeing between three and five inches of rain between tonight and Thursday.

Temperatures will be cooler, and mainly in the 80s for highs during these rainy days.

This wet pattern should break down and move on by the end of the week. Rain chances will be ending by the end of the week, with dry and hot weather returning by next weekend.

Lately, we've seen more rain showing up here in Central Texas, and this looks to be a trend! Right now, a weak front is stalled across the area. This is causing moisture to pool overhead... and combined with daytime heating, showers and thunderstorms have erupted once again today. Some of the rain has been quite heavy... with radar estimates of near 3 inches from near Elgin to Cedar Creek. Rain was spotty across the Austin Metro area, but some places around Lake Travis had almost eight tenths of an inch. Portions of the western Hill Country also saw a few isolated heavy totals.

The stationary front should linger around the area, plus an upper-level low will drift into northern Texas from the Rockies Monday through Thursday. This combination will ensure high chances for rain for most of next week! The latest five day rainfall outlook issued by the National Weather Service says most of Central Texas could see an average of four to five inches of rain combined Sunday through Wednesday night! If this holds true, that would put a significant dent in the drought. We are now over 9.5 inches below average for the year.

It does appear that the wet pattern will end by the end of the week, with rain chances nearly gone for next weekend. Let's hope for this rain!

Now that Edouard is inland, we are watching to see if he will bring us much rain. The storm has been downgraded to a depression, and at 8pm this evening, he is located near College Station.

The track of the storm is now quite a bit further north than what we expected yesterday. This is not the best news for us in terms of getting the widespread one to three inch rains we were hoping for. Edouard is now expected to track from College Station to near Temple overnight, and the core of the heaviest rains should follow that track. For the Austin area, we are expecting to be on the south end of that track, and rain totals over the next 24 hours should be in the quarter to half inch range.  The one to four inch totals are now likely going to be from Georgetown to Rockdale northward.

On Wednesday, the storm's remnants will be heading toward Abilene. We may see some rain redevelop over the Hill Country in the heat of the day, but from Austin eastward, rain should be spotty.

After Wednesday, the rain is over, and it's back to near 100-degree temperatures through the weekend.

We continue to follow Tropical Storm Edouard... now expected to make landfall near Galveston around midday Tuesday. The storm could increase to a minimal hurricane just before landfall.

The storm is forecast to track northwest into Central Texas Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. Rain will start east of Austin, then spread northwest across Austin into the Hill Country into Wednesday morning. We are not expecting any serious problems from Edouard as it weakens to a depression over Austin Wednesday morning. We should get some good rains, though. We are estimating between one and three inches across the area from the storm, with the highest totals just to the east of Austin.

The storm should move out of the Hill Country and into West Texas Wednesday afternoon, and the rain should begin coming to an end. Hot and dry weather should return Thursday through next weekend.