-- Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta
4 December 2012
The rains arrived earlier in the day
than we had expected, and it looks like they’ll be with us through the evening
and overnight tonight. In addition, the early arrival of today’s rains meant
that afternoon temps stayed well-below our forecast range, with Metro Airport
failing to reach 70° for the day.
As of 4PM, the cool front we’ve been
following over the past couple of days is draped from central Arkansas through
the ArkLaTex region and southwestward into east Texas -- and it is still on
schedule to move into our viewing area early tomorrow. The problem is that once
it arrives, it looks like it will slow to a near-crawl from the pre-dawn hours
on Wednesday into the late afternoon.
There have been a few imbedded
t-storms in the pre-frontal rain bands today, but there does not appear to be a
real “severe weather” threat for the viewing area during the evening, overnight
or even tomorrow morning. Although the front will slow as it passes through the
area, the t-storm action will remain limited.
However, given the slow movement of
the system, we could see some fairly significant rain totals for a few
neighborhoods. Some preliminary radar estimates are already showing some 1” and
even a couple of 2” bull’s eyes in the WAFB viewing area this afternoon,
although the vast majority of WAFB neighborhoods are reporting a ½” or less thus
far. But given that we could see rains continuing into the lunch hour on
Wednesday for some communities, we can expect a flurry of 1” totals around the
region from our area Weather Watchers by tomorrow afternoon.
Skies should start showing some
clearing by late Wednesday, with dry days expected for Thursday and Friday. But
be advised, even with the cool front working through, the air stays mild to
warm, with patchy fog likely for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
mornings.
In fact, what we won’t see with our
Wednesday front is a significant cool-down. Many WAFB watchers should expect
daytime highs to remain in the 70°s for the entire work week, with upper 70°s on
the forecast board for the weekend! We’ll put spotty to isolated rains in the
weekend forecast as well, but the main weather story after Wednesday will be the
unusually-warm weather persisting into next week.
In the extended outlook, the guidance
is a bit mixed. For now, we’ll call for another front to arrive during the
early part of next week, delivering another chance of rain.
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