Rain is on the way! Severe Weather on Sunday?

Great news! We have a couple of rain-making systems on the way. The first of these will approach the area from the west southwest during the overnight hours and push through the region tomorrow. As that upper level disturbance passes over the area our rain chances will increase. Weather disturbances riding the westerly winds aloft will bring us our chance for showers and thunderstorms on Wednesday.

Let's break down our chances for rain hour-by-hour using the latest high resolution NAM Model: Forecast for Wednesday, February 6, 2013

12:00 a.m. CST (Model is showing scattered showers approaching the area from the southwest)

3:00 a.m. CST (Scattered showers with a clap or two of thunder possible across the area)

11:00 a.m. CST (Scattered showers/thundershowers moving through the area)

6:00 p.m. CST (As the main disturbance moves through the area, a large batch of showers and thunderstorms is expected to develop and dump some heavy rain over areas along and east of the Interstate 35 corridor)

This particular model is forecasting the heaviest rains to fall across the coastal plains where they could see over 2 inches of rain! I think we will be lucky to see a 0.25 inches of rainfall across most areas.

*The rain will come in waves during the day on Wednesday with the heaviest rains developing by late afternoon/early evening as the main disturbance sweeps through the area*

Severe Weather Possible this Weekend:

I'm watching a large storm system northwest of Washington State right now that will be diving to the southeast over the coming days...this upper level storm system will bring us another shot at thunderstorms over the weekend, with the best chance for storms on Sunday. CAPE values (instability in the atmosphere) will be high across the area on Sunday, telling me that storms that develop will have a good chance of becoming strong or possibly severe with hail and damaging winds. Still a ways out, however, thought I would give you all a head's up.

Current location of the storm system:

Forecast CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy) Values for Sunday:

Models show a Cold Front moving across the area from west to east on Sunday. I would expect a line of showers and thunderstorms (some strong to severe) to develop ahead of and along the cold front. This map is showing surface wind direction and moisture content in the air (Dark green=very humid air)