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Displaying AFOS PIL: AFDFWD Received: 2018-02-25 05:44 UTC
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060 FXUS64 KFWD 250544 AFDFWD Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Fort Worth TX 1144 PM CST Sat Feb 24 2018 .AVIATION... Satellite imagery shows a shortwave trough lifting northeast into the Midwest, with all associated convection having moved well south and east of North Texas. A second shortwave is currently dropping southeast across the Four Corners and will move east across the Southern Plains during the afternoon and evening hours Sunday. This disturbance will kick off scattered showers and a few isolated storms across Central and East Texas Sunday. Some of this activity may get close to the Waco area, and VCSH will remain in the KACT forecast for much of Sunday afternoon. The atmosphere will likely be too moisture-starved for development farther north and we will maintain a dry forecast in the DFW area. Patchy fog is still possible overnight tonight, but it appears that the persistent cirrus shield may prohibit any significant fog formation. Fog has been removed from all TAFs for Sunday morning based on these trends and recent guidance. We will still need to keep an eye on visibilties for the rest of the night as temperature/dewpoint spreads decrease. Better opportunities for fog may actually occur Sunday night as the second shortwave departs to the northeast. Will introduce light fog at DFW in the extended portion of the forecast. Otherwise, light northeast winds will shift around to the southeast Sunday as the next shortwave approaches. Winds should return to light northeasterly Sunday night. 30 && .UPDATE... /Issued 942 PM CST Sat Feb 24 2018/ All the rain has exited the region, at least for the remainder of the night. Another round of rain is expected across mainly Central Texas beginning Sunday morning as another series of disturbances sweeps across the region within the southwest flow aloft. Severe weather is not expected, and the thunderstorm coverage will likely be isolated. For the update, adjusted temperatures a little based on current trends. Afternoon temperatures in our western counties warmed into the upper 60s; higher than expected. Clear skies in this area will allow for radiational cooling, but temperatures are currently several degrees warmer than previously expected, and thus will likely only fall into the mid 30s instead of lower 30s. Cloud cover will prevail across our southeastern counties where temperatures will likely only fall in the upper 40s and 50s. Fog development is still uncertain, primarily due to the coverage of high clouds continuing through the night. Breaks in the high clouds may allow for decent radiational cooling in some areas, and thus the fog development and density may vary considerably across short distances. Will keep a patchy fog mention across the region through the night and monitor trends. At this time, am not expecting widespread dense fog, but if pockets of dense fog do occur, it will likely be after 3-4 am. JLDunn && .SHORT TERM... /Issued 330 PM CST Sat Feb 24 2018/ /Rest Of The Weekend/ A Pacific cold front continues to surge into Central Texas and has overtaken the earlier pre-frontal trough already this afternoon. Meanwhile, the stubborn main mid level trough that lingered to our west all last week has finally opened up and will continue tracking east across the Central/Southern Plains this afternoon and over the Mid Mississippi Valley tonight. Due to corruption of our warm sector environment this morning from numerous showers and cloud cover, the severe threat for our southeast half of the CWA has been mitigated somewhat. With the storm threat continuing to shift south and east with the cold front, we are canceling both the flood and tornado watches this afternoon. That being said, instability and wind shear may still yield a few strong to marginally severe storms across our southeast counties through nightfall, before exiting the area with the cold front toward the Upper Texas and Southwest Louisiana coastlines. Clearing is already occurring across the northwest half of the CWA where drying of the atmospheric column has been quite impressive. A weak surface high pressure ridge will settle across the area late tonight into Sunday morning with light northeast and east winds expected. The more substantial drying at the surface will likely remain relegated to our far west-northwest counties overnight with surface dew points remaining above 40 degrees further east. The spongy and very saturated wet soils will combine with the light winds and clearing skies for some fog development, especially east of I-35 where surface dew points remain up and where dew point depressions should be very low. We cannot rule out some patchy dense areas through mid morning across the eastern counties where winds may briefly become calm during the pre-dawn hours Sunday. In addition, lingering forcing will remain over Central Texas through Sunday and combined with mid level moisture should result in high-based, light convective activity. Mid level lapse rates will in excess of 7 deg c/km which may allow for a few lightning strikes. Otherwise, the surface ridge will shift over the Lower Mississippi valley with weak return flow across the area. With little in the way of low level cold advection, highs will recover into the 60s Sunday afternoon and would've even warmed them up more if not for the lingering mid-high level cloudiness, low convective chances, and wet soils. && .LONG TERM... /Issued 330 PM CST Sat Feb 24 2018/ /Next Week/ As the last shortwave exits the region Sunday night and early Monday, subsidence will finally take hold across the region through Monday night as shortwave ridging takes hold aloft. Weak surface high pressure lay across the area and result in light winds and the potential for more fog potential by daybreak Monday. We'll likely see highs rebound to between the mid 60s to lower 70s. Like Sunday, I would've gone even warmer gone warmer Monday, if not for all the water that will need to be evaporated off. The return of south winds 10 to 15 mph Tuesday and Tuesday night will result in return moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and a stratus intrusion by Tuesday morning, as strong mid level energy drops south down the U.S. West Coast and over Southern California and Nevada by Tuesday evening. This will result in increasing southwest flow aloft over the Texas. I expect a round of convection driven by warm advection and isentropic upglide by Tuesday night with a shortwave disturbance moving northeast out of Mexico. No severe weather is expected Tuesday and Tuesday night, though a strong elevated storm or two is possible with mid level lapse rates steepening above an shallow elevated mixed layer (ie..capping inversion). Heading into Wednesday, it appears the once overly progressive GFS has deepened and slowed down it's solution with this system and more in line with the Canadian and European solutions from yesterday. A surface dryline should move into our western counties and toward I-35 Wednesday afternoon, before being overtaken by another Pacific surface cold front Wednesday night. Though forcing and deep bulk shear looks more than substantial enough for strong to severe thunderstorms, it appears both instability at the surface and aloft are relatively meager. However, I do know that medium range models tend to struggle with environments this far out. For now we'll just continue to carry good chances for showers and thunderstorms and see how the kinematic and thermodynamic details work themselves out before sounding the horn on any severe weather threat. Temperatures will remain mild (or some would say warm) the latter half of the week with a much needed drying trend and continued mild temperatures. 05/ && .PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS... Dallas-Ft. Worth 42 66 41 68 48 / 5 10 10 5 20 Waco 41 65 37 70 46 / 10 30 10 5 30 Paris 42 62 42 68 46 / 10 5 10 0 20 Denton 39 66 35 68 44 / 5 5 10 5 20 McKinney 38 64 39 66 44 / 5 10 10 5 20 Dallas 42 65 42 67 49 / 5 10 10 5 20 Terrell 43 64 42 68 48 / 5 30 10 5 30 Corsicana 47 65 43 68 50 / 10 30 10 5 30 Temple 45 64 41 71 49 / 10 20 10 5 30 Mineral Wells 37 67 33 70 45 / 5 5 10 0 20 && .FWD WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... None. && $$ 30/82