Severe Storm Forecast Update-3pm

It's been an interesting morning watching things develop as the cool front and upper low slowly march this direction. For San Antonio, we are in the "drizzle zone" right now, with a dew point of 64 degrees. Meanwhile, out to our west, it is sunny and storms are starting to "pop" in West Texas, the Panhandle, Kansas and Colorado. A tornado watch was just issued for most of the Texas Panhandle. Looking at regional radar, there is a very strong burst of energy emerging out of New Mexico this afternoon. As that energy moves into western Texas, look for a line of very severe storms to form. I would not be surprised to see quite a few reports of tornadoes this afternoon in that region.

For San Antonio, according to NOAA, the storms will die out before hitting us tonight, then form mainly to our east tomorrow. I'm not sure I totally agree and am leaving my schedule open for tomorrow afternoon to go storm chasing to the NW or West of San Antonio in the afternoon.

Here is what NOAA is predicting:

Some good news, in that while we still expect some severe weather across portions of South Central Texas, the main ingredients to this outbreak will focus to our W and NW tonight...and to our NE on Friday afternoon/night. Tonight we expect a lot of thunderstorm activity to form late tonight (after 6pm) across portions of west Texas. These storms will march east and possibly move into the far western hill country and southwest Texas after midnight. In addition...storms that develop over the Mexican mountains...will travel east across the Rio Grande and possibly affect areas near the river like Del Rio and Eagle Pass. At this time, this activity is not expected to make it all the way into the AUS-SAT-I-35 corridor. The main threat area tonight will remain west of a line from Burnet to Eagle Pass. Large hail and damaging winds will be the primary threat. An isolated tornado cannot be ruled out.

A dryline/weak cool front is expected to push through the western half of South Central Texas by Friday afternoon. This will allow additional storms to fire Friday afternoon/evening/night as a stronger upper level storm pushes through the state. A lot will depend on boundaries, residual cloudiness, and the dryline. Again the focus and best ingredients appear to be pooled to our east...but with that said, we will still carry a chance for severe thunderstorms mainly east of a line from Kerrville to Pleasanton.

I have attached the latest graphics that depict our threat areas both Tonight and Friday Night. Another update will be given tomorrow when hopefully we can be a little more specific on the timing and threat area for the Friday evening/overnight time period.

Please go to www.srh.noaa.gov/ewx for the lastest weather information including our graphics, forecasts, watches, and warnings.

Paul Yura
National Weather Service Austin-San Antonio TX