I wanted to post a quick early morning update for the early risers out there. Jenny will have our typical, more detailed blog later this morning. An active couple of days will begin to ramp up this afternoon. A couple strong storms are certainly possible this afternoon and evening across Northwest Texas south into the Big Country. Widespread severe weather is not anticipated at this time, but the strongest storms could produce wind gusts up to 60 MPH. Overnight weather model data has continued the trend of having the heaviest rains fall across western portions of our state through Monday. Widespread rain totals of 3 to 6 inches are possible in the Permian Basin, Big Country, Concho Valley, and western sections of the Hill Country (mainly west of Highway 83). Rain totals will be comparatively lower near and east of Interstate 35, but we’re certainly still expecting wet weather at times through Monday. The good news is at least now we’re not expecting any sort of widespread flash flood risk in the major metros.

Further west we will certainly be talking about the possibility of heavy rain and localized flash flooding. The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for the Permian Basin and Concho Valley. This watch begins tonight and runs through the morning hours on Monday. We anticipated the heaviest rains and relative highest risk of flash flooding to occur on Sunday and Sunday Night. Widespread rain totals of 3 to 6 inches will be possible, but locally higher amounts over 7 inches are expected in one or two locations. The good news is this rain will help lake levels in the longer-term, but a few instances of flash flooding will be possible before that point. Widespread or major flooding isn’t expected at this time, but we’ll have to keep an eye on trends. It doesn’t take as much rain to cause issues compared to further east. If we see six inches of rain over two days we’ll get by with only minor nuisance flooding for the most part. If we see six inches of rain fall in three hours we’re going to be dealing with a lot more problems.