Folks across parched west and west central Texas who have been wishing for rain since the beginning of this year will see your wishes come true this coming weekend!  An upper level low will set up across Arizona and New Mexico which will bring a somewhat extended period of moderate to heavy rains across the region beginning early Saturday and potentially into early next week.  A strong area of high pressure will develop across the eastern half of the nation which doesn’t look to move out until the following Tuesday.  As of right now, it looks like we’ll see some pretty healthy rainfall totals across a wide swath of west, west central and central Texas which will certainly help with the abnormally dry conditions which have plagued the western half of the state since the beginning of the year.  Severe storms are possible Friday in the panhandle, then after that it looks like we’ll see a mix of thunderstorms and rain thereafter.  

Here’s the current look at the overall forecast for rainfall accumulation through next Monday evening.  Not bad!  We’ll have more on this upcoming rain event as we get further into the week and the forecast begins to refine.