A weak cold front will move into the panhandle overnight and through north Texas by noon tomorrow eventually stalling out somewhere north of I-10 by Thursday afternoon.  This will bring slightly cooler temps to the northern half of the state tomorrow afternoon, but the southern half of the state will still be looking at highs ranging from the mid-70s to low 80s.  Even with the front, temps will remain above normal for most of the state through the coming weekend.  A surface high over the Gulf of Mexico will begin to shift south and we’ll see an increase in moisture levels along the coast and inland counties through the rest of the week which will help keep nighttime lows a little warmer than they’ve been lately.  Winds will die out overnight, but return again tomorrow across north Texas with the front, and ahead of the front across south Texas and the Rio Grande Valley region.  This will be the area of interest with an Elevated risk of wildfires by tomorrow afternoon.

Our next chance for rain will arrive this weekend starting off across north central and northeast Texas early Sunday, then expanding south across east and southeast Texas by Sunday afternoon/evening and continuing into Monday.  We won’t need to build an ark…I can assure you of that…but some areas across far northeast and eastern Texas could get between 1/4 to 1/2 inch by late Monday.  Another cold front will arrive across the northern half of the state early Saturday morning, but once again will not have too much of an impact on temps for the weekend.  The bulk of the cold air associated with this weekend’s front will skirt to our east impacting mainly the northeastern and far eastern regions of the state knocking temps down to right at or just below normal for a day or two.  For the rest of the state, we’ll see our Non-Winter conditions continue well into next week with above normal temps and no rain in the forecast.  And if you’re wondering what happened to our El Nino Winter….in case you missed it, check out our blog from yesterday evening which contains some thoughts on what happened to buck the typical El Nino winter forecast for our state, plus a peek at how this could impact our Spring severe weather season!  https://texasstormchasers.com/2016/02/08/what-happened-to-el-nino/