Fire weather danger will be elevated to near-critical this afternoon in the Texas Panhandle, West Texas, and Northwest Texas. A very dry airmass is in place and we expect relative humidity values of 10 to 25 percent this afternoon. The lacking ingredient will be the very strong winds we had on Monday. However, winds could still gust up to 20 to 25 MPH out of the southwest at times this afternoon. As Monday proved, we can certainly get significant wildfires. Any new fires that develop today could spread quickly, and firefighters will undoubtedly be keeping a close eye on containment lines on our ongoing fires today. Active fire behavior is anticipated.

Patchy light rain will remain possible through the early afternoon in the Rio Grande Valley, Deep South Texas, and in South-Central Texas. By this afternoon we should see those showers dwindle with a lull continuing through tonight. Patchy drizzle and fog is a decent bet across those same regions. Scattered showers will be possible on Thursday in South-Central Texas, Southwest Texas, South Texas, and the Rio Grande Valley. Those rain chances will continue into Friday, and spread into Southeast Texas, East Texas, Northeast Texas, with isolated showers in North Texas and Central Texas. Much of this activity through Friday should be light with no organized severe weather threat.

A cold front will move south into the state on Saturday. Uncertainty remains regarding any upper lift support, timing of precipitation, and areas of best chances as we head into the weekend. As such this forecast will likely change as we head into the second half of the week. We’ll likely see showers and thunderstorm chances across the eastern two-thirds of Texas. We may have to deal with some stronger storms during the evening and late-night hours Saturday in Southeast Texas. Again, uncertainty remains high for this time period. Rain chances look likely, but we’ll have to refine the specifics as confidence increases in a particular solution. Some locations could receive two inches of rain in this timeframe.