National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

• Home
• Site Map
• News
• Organization
• Search for: NWS All NOAA 

000
FXUS64 KEWX 250403
AFDEWX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio TX
1103 PM CDT Sun May 24 2020

.UPDATE...
Squall line has move east of I-35. As a result, will cancel Severe
Thunderstorm Watches 222 and 223. An area of light to moderate rains
with occasional lightning will continue over the Hill Country and
I-35 corridor for a few hours as a wake low forms. Severe
Thunderstorm Watch 224 continues as the squall line moves to the
east. However, with the speed of the line, expect it will be
cancelled prior to the 4 AM expiration time. Have lowered or dropped
POPS for the Rio Grande areas for the overnight. Multiple Hi-Res
models show some thunderstorm redevelopment over the Hill Country to
southern parts of the I-35 corridor overnight and will retain POPs
across those areas.

&&

.PREV DISCUSSION... /ISSUED 912 PM CDT Sun May 24 2020/

UPDATE...
Squall line extends from near Brownwood to Llano to San Antonio to
Pearsall to Carrizo Springs. Have updated for new Severe Thunderstorm
Watch 224 ahead of the line and have dropped most counties behind the
line. Remainder of forecast is generally on track, for now.

PREV DISCUSSION... /ISSUED 711 PM CDT Sun May 24 2020/

UPDATE...
Added a new Severe Thunderstorm Watch for Comal up to Williamson
county and westward into the Hill County.

PREV DISCUSSION... /ISSUED 643 PM CDT Sun May 24 2020/

AVIATION...
Clusters of Thunderstorms are ongoing over Austin, west of San
Antonio and South of Del Rio as of Friday evening. Models show these
clusters of storms generally moving eastward through the evening. Due
to their isolated nature exact timing will be difficult to predict
but the best chances will run through 07z-09z tonight. Behind the
storms MVFR cigs should build in through mid-morning on Monday.
Showers will linger through mid-day as well. Looking ahead another
round of showers and storms will be possible late tomorrow afternoon
into Tuesday morning.

PREV DISCUSSION... /ISSUED 603 PM CDT Sun May 24 2020/

UPDATE...
New Severe Thunderstorm Watch issues for the counties along and west
of US HWY 281. This should be the focus of severe weather through the
first part of the evening and overnight hours. Recent runs of the
HRRR show the complex of storms slowly developing across the Rio
Grande moving eastward towards the I-35 corridor.

Additional storms are ongoing from Austin to Bastrop. These storms
have produced some quarter to half dollar sized hail. The threat with
these storms is more transient as updrafts quickly form, drop the
hail, and then collapse.

PREV DISCUSSION... /ISSUED 249 PM CDT Sun May 24 2020/

SHORT TERM (Tonight through Monday Night)...
An area of showers and storms along the Highway 77 corridor
continues early this afternoon. Deeper moisture along with daytime
heating has allowed for scattered convection, some likely producing
heavy rainfall, to develop and move northward over the mentioned
area. Hi-res models generally show this convection continuing for
another couple hours, then gradually weakening. We will need to
monitor for the possibility of any outflow boundaries propagating
westward to serve as an additional focus for convection for counties
along and east of I-35/I-37.

Farther west, convection continues to develop over the higher
terrain of Mexico to the west of the Rio Grande. The overall setup
is fairly similar to yesterday, with steep mid-level lapse rates,
plenty of instability with MLCAPE around 3500 J/kg but with a
marginal amount of shear. Despite the lack of shear, the chance for
severe weather along the Rio Grande plains and southern Edwards
Plateau looks decent this afternoon and evening. Val Verde county is
already under Severe Thunderstorm Watch #218 until 8 PM this
evening.

As we head into the late evening and overnight hours, the activity
moving out of the Rio Grande plains should manage to develop into a
complex of thunderstorms while moving eastward. The global models
are in fairly good agreement in showing this scenario and indeed the
latest GOES Differential WV loop does show what appears to be a
shortwave trough axis moving through the Big Bend and northern
Mexico. The mesoscale models differ in where the convection will
initially develop, but do all show some activity developing near the
Rio Grande and moving eastward overnight. Suspect we could see a few
severe storms during the overnight hours, especially if the
convection congeals into an MCS. While there would be a concern for
large hail, damaging thunderstorm would be also be favored. Frequent
lightning and heavy rainfall will also accompany the stronger
storms.

On Monday, the flow aloft manages to strengthen some as a trough
axis drops southward into far west Texas. The models again show a
similar scenario where convection develops over the Rio Grande
plains or southern Edwards Plateau during the early evening hours.
Convection chances look very good as we will also have additional
lift provided by a cold front moving in from the northwest. We will
again show high rain chances across most of south central Texas from
late Monday evening, through the overnight hours and into early
Tuesday morning.

LONG TERM (Tuesday through Sunday)...
As model trends have shifted the more elevated period for higher QPF
potential along the cold front and larger upper disturbance, so goes
the increase in QPF for Tuesday morning over southeast counties.
Otherwise the daily QPF trends should not show much change in the
long-term part of the forecast.

As the past several rounds of convection have been driven by winds
and thus pushing activity eastward faster, concerns for cumulative
precipitation runoff concerns have eased in the medium range as well.
In hindsight, the weekend period continuing through Wednesday should
reflect several broad areas of 2-5 inch with isolated higher
pockets mostly as projected, but the lower end of the forecast
totals should end up being more common, and a few locations may end
up with totals below half an inch through the period. This is a
typical dilemma for late May upper trough patterns, and especially
those that are temporarily cut off from the polar westerlies aloft
and driven by MCV influences. With the front on the heels of the
late Monday night storm complex, there is a good chance that rain
chances will wane further for the period from Tuesday afternoon
through Wednesday. Mid week rain chances should continue to contract
News towards the now more compact upper low forecast over the Red
River Valley by 00Z Thursday.

Unstable NW flow aloft on the back-side of the upper low late in the
week as it leans east to the Ark-La-Tex; then, Friday, a high
amplitude pattern over the SWRN US results in a retrogression of the
upper low that by this time is showing a good signal of filling in
and weakening. After low PoP slight boost of mostly slight chances
carry into Thursday night, Friday and Saturday PoPs show a slight
bump in rain chances, but mainly for the air mass diurnal variety.
The ECM trends for next weekend continued an even more stable
picture, with the 12Z run depicting a large upper ridge establishing
dominance over Central and West TX by Saturday.

Given the expectation of more reductions in the long term, a subtle
bump was given to high temp forecasts versus the guidance blends
from Tuesday onward.

&&

.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS...
Austin Camp Mabry              69  84  66  81  64 /  70  50  70  60  30
Austin Bergstrom Intl Airport  68  83  66  81  63 /  70  50  70  60  30
New Braunfels Muni Airport     66  84  65  81  63 /  70  40  70  60  30
Burnet Muni Airport            67  82  63  78  61 /  80  40  70  60  20
Del Rio Intl Airport           68  88  67  86  64 /  60  20  60  30  10
Georgetown Muni Airport        68  82  65  79  64 /  70  50  70  60  30
Hondo Muni Airport             64  85  65  85  63 /  70  30  70  40  20
San Marcos Muni Airport        68  83  65  81  62 /  70  40  70  60  30
La Grange - Fayette Regional   69  85  67  82  64 /  70  60  70  70  40
San Antonio Intl Airport       66  85  66  82  64 /  70  40  80  60  20
Stinson Muni Airport           64  85  67  82  65 /  70  40  70  60  20

&&

.EWX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
None.
&&

$$

Short-Term/Aviation...04
Long-Term...KCW
Decision Support...Treadway