With hurricane Gustav taking dead aim on New Orleans President Bush has ordered FEMA to immediately send ten truckloads of ice and ten truckloads of bottled water to Billings, Montana.

Makes as much sense as some of the things they did after Katrina.  I think all the temporary housing is still bogged down in Arkansas.

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.

So..you want to track hurricanes...and do your own hurricane forecasting?

It's a lot of work, and can be a lot of fun...and you can track your progress hourly, as you go.

That gives you near immediate feedback as the storm moves on it way...

You can plot the data by latitude and longitude, and see how close your forecasts are to the actual plots.

Start with satellite images, and upper wind patterns.  Then move to ocean temps, and surface winds.

Then upper air features, and persistance.

Here's a good starting point:

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/hur/
storm_1/00/index_hurpage.shtml

That should get you going!

Happy Tracking.

Scott Fisher

Bloggin' live from the KVET FREE Texas Music Series....

We are at Hills Cafe in South Austin (we being Jerry, my photograher and I)

Headliner tonight is Ryan Turner...and thanks to the recent rains...temps are almost "Cool" for a mid August afternoon in Austin!

We are still watching the radar...but storms have been very spotty so far today.

With all the low level moisture around, we can pretty much expect some isolated showers tonight and again for the next few days.

Hope you are coming out for the show...don't forget to stop by and say "Hey" to us...

Live, Local Weather 5 and 9 tonight!

Scott Fisher

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!

With hurricane season now upon us, you may be interested to know, how the Hurricane Center down in Miami determines the

city or land marker that will define coastal watches and warnings.  They call them "breakpoints", and they are basically just a

distribution of locales that mark the end or beginning of a coastal information event.

Hunt for your breakpoint(s) here:  http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/breakpoints.shtml

 Scott Fisher

Get your hurricane tracking chart here!

While here at the office, we track hurricanes with computers and software, there are always some who like to plot-by-hand.  The best way, is with a hurricane tracking chart!  You’ll want to grab one here:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/pdf/AT_Track_chart.pdf

be sure and double check your latitude/longitude and be ready to plot your tracks for ’08!

Scott Fisher