Tag Archives: Troy Kimmel

Ice storm looming

Another warning email from Troy Kimmel, who teaches meteorology at the University of Texas. The temperature is dropping through 33 degrees in our neck of the woods and rain is moving into the Austin area.

"Radar indicates that precipitation covers much of the Hill Country and will move northeastward to overspread the IH-35 corridor counties of Williamson, Travis, and Hays Counties shortly."

I hope to be able to post a few more times before bedtime. Don’t expect any power failures before morning, if then. Could be we’ll get lucky and avoid them. Mr. Boy went to bed excited about possible snow, but that rare occurance isn’t expected until tomorrow night at the earliest.

UPDATE  At 11:40 p.m., Troy is tracking thunderstorms over Mason county, southwest of Austin. If they move in here, we could have more flooding before dawn and they might as the rain generally is moving northeast. Interesting times. 

Winter finally arrives

Around noon today is meteorologist Troy Kimmel’s expectation, when temperatures could plunge as much as thirty degrees in a few hours–preceded by one to two inches of the rain that’s been falling since Friday morning: "Although some are still delaying the arrival of this much colder air in the local area until Sunday, I simply don’t see it. The sheer weight of the dense arctic cold air will continue to push it south to arrive in the Austin area sometime in the midday hours Saturday. Temperatures in the prefrontal environment will be in the 60s to near 70 F.. but these temperatures will fall quickly to near 40 during the afternoon Saturday." Winter, it seems, is finally here, if only for a few days. Hope the rain keeps up. We need it.

Freezing by Friday?

Definitely in the Hill Country, but possibly across the Central Texas region as well. Troy Kimmel explains:

"A strong arctic cold front.. preceded by scattered to numerous rain showers and thunderstorms.. will move through our local area between midnight Wednesday night and daybreak Thursday morning…Temperatures are expected to fall to near or slightly below freezing Thursday night but, at this time, I think precipitation should taper off before any freezing and/or frozen precipitation can develop locally."

UPDATE  Kimmel and other local meteorologists are calling for the storms to begin early, possibly as early as this afternoon. Might be sooner. The western horizon is already a leaden color, we’ve had a shower at the Rancho and the wind is picking up. 

Under the gun

Severe weather developing over the next few hours as a big cold front moves across Central Texas. Meteorologist Troy Kimmel expects we’ll see some action at the Rancho. So I may be offline a while.

Troy says, "I do expect thunderstorms to develop with some thunderstorms possibly becoming severe with the primary risk being damaging straightline thunderstorm wind. A severe weather watch may be issued over the local area within the next few hours. You can see the NWS/SPC discussion and associated graphic for this mesoscale discussion [here]."

UPDATE Turned into a nice, soaking rain of half an inch to an inch and a half over much of the area. No wind damage or hail at the Rancho. 

Waiting for El Nino

Bob Rose and Troy Kimmel, my favorite Austin meteorologists, say we’re going to bust this drought any time now, as the strengthening El Nino in the eastern Pacific is going to bring us a rainy period this fall/winter here in Central Texas. That’ll be nice because, although the temps are dipping into the 50s overnight and the days are seldom above the low 90s, it’s still pretty dry.

"The latest measurements indicate that a couple regions of the Pacific have already reached moderate threshold while others are still categorized as weak," Rose writes. "The Nino 3.4 region, the one which typically has the greatest influence on Texas weather, is still showing weak. Overall, sea surface temperatures continue to warm…and the episode is forecast to become moderate in intensity by November or December.

"Historically, weak El Ninos typically have a somewhat dry signal for Texas. On the other hand, moderate to strong episodes show a strong correlation with above normal rainfall across Texas and the southern US.  There is also a stronger signal for below normal winter temperatures with the moderate and strong events."

The outlook predicted by the National Weather Service? "…for November through February…above normal rainfall across almost all of Texas."

Chris still expected

Chris doesn’t seem to have much chance to become a hurricane, after all, but the hurricane center still has it headed for South Texas by next Wednesday as, at least, a tropical storm.

UT lecturer Troy Kimmel concludes: "With this forecast track and intensity forecast, the effects locally most likely would be minimal with an increase in moisture and instability as the system moves ashore as the counterclockwise flow off in the Gulf increases."

The Chron’s SciGuy, Eric Berger, who is in Houston, still worries: "If the storm remains even very moderately organized, there certainly will be ample fuel for it in the Gulf. All the more reason, then, to hope that wind shear and Cuba rip it apart."

If we got some rain out of it, it would be fine with me. The only problem with wanting rain for Central Texas in July and August is somebody on the coast has to get hit by a tropical storm or hurricane first.

UPDATE Saturday a.m. Chris appears dead, but Accuweather.com’s Joe Bastardi hasn’t given up yet: "Still pressures are near 1010 with what is left of the system and while this means Chris is no problem at all for the Florida Straits, it is still something to watch for south Texas."

We’re havin’ a heat wave

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