A strong cold front is expected to swing through Central Texas around the lunch hour today and when it does, it’ll help to both surge highs close to records and then drop temperatures steadily through the afternoon. How is this possible? It’s all thanks to compressional heating! South and southwesterly winds are moving air from West Texas into our area. The elevation is a lot higher in West Texas so as air drops in the atmosphere, it warms up. This typically happens immediately before a cold front moves through so temperatures will spike for around 30 minutes to an hour before the colder air settles in. We’re going to start out in the low-to-mid 60s this morning with mostly cloudy skies overhead and skies will stay partly-to-mostly cloudy through most of the day. The front should arrive as early as 10 AM in our northern tier of counties (Bosque and Hill) before arriving near Highway 84 around lunchtime (including Goldthwaite, Waco, Gatesville, and Mexia). The front will move through the remainder of the area (including Bell County) by 2 PM. We’re expecting the spike in temperatures between 10 AM and 1 PM (from north to south) before temperatures steadily drop through the 70s and into the 60s by the late afternoon. Rain isn’t expected with today’s front, but some lingering moisture in the atmosphere could bring us a few stray sprinkles Friday morning.
The chilly air behind Thursday’s front will be around for a few days, but afternoon temperatures will rebound much quicker than morning temperatures will. We’re expecting morning lows to range from the mid 30s to the low 40s Friday morning through Sunday morning, but afternoon highs near 60° Friday will warm into the mid 60s Saturday before climbing close to 70° Sunday! Dry conditions are expected through the weekend before all eyes turn to the Arctic air that’ll move into Central Texas next week. There’s still a lot of uncertainty regarding exactly when the cold air starts to spill in, but were expecting that to happen Monday or Monday night. Before the front arrives, high temperatures Monday should reach the low-to-mid 70s but then will steadily fall through the remainder of the week. Tuesday’s forecast is the most uncertain as temperatures could either be stuck in the 40s for highs or reach the upper 50s if the coldest air stays away a bit longer. For now, we’re keeping highs Tuesday in the low-to-mid 50s but expect that number the change over the coming day. The remainder of the week, however, is fairly locked in. Thanks to partly to mostly cloudy skies and continuous northerly winds, highs next Wednesday through at least the start of next weekend are expected to be in the 40s with morning lows likely in the 20s! Some forecast models are showing the potential for highs even colder than that. We’re not ready to drop temperatures that low, but that could be the case as we get some better forecast data over the coming days.
Another thing we’ll have to look out for is the potential for some light rain next week. Unfortunately, so much uncertainty exists that we can’t pin point exactly which day may feature rain. Rain chances are between 10% and 20% next Monday through next Saturday with the best potential coming Monday, Thursday, and Friday. Since temperatures are expected to be much colder than normal, we’ll have to keep our eye on the potential for wintry weather. Wintry weather could be possible, but not anticipated right now. Even if wintry weather were to happen next week, it doesn’t look like the atmosphere will have much moisture to work with.
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February 04, 2021 at 06:47PM
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Midday cold front boosts then drops temperatures - KWTX
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