Our long-awaited cold front is making its way into north Texas this morning and will continue to drop south into central Texas by late this afternoon. Showers and thunderstorms continue to develop well ahead of the front along an outflow boundary stretched between Palestine, Austin and San Angelo.  This outflow boundary and the chance for storms will continue to drift south this morning bringing a chance of gusty winds around 30 to 40 mph and brief periods of heavy rain. Behind this boundary across western north Texas and the south plains, widespread showers will continue for several more hours before beginning to fizzle out later this morning.

Best chances for seeing additional rainfall and storms today will be across southwest, southcentral and southeast Texas ahead of the cold front.  Widespread severe weather is not expected, but we could continue to see some stronger storms this morning and through early afternoon with a threat of gusty winds and brief heavy downpours. Flooding is not likely to be much of an issue with the outflow boundary moving at a good pace. Most of the short-range models are keeping precipitation chances pretty low ahead of the front later this afternoon; however, with an upper level low in place off the coast in southeast Texas, this may help to generate additional rain and storms across southeast and south central Texas into the evening and overnight hours.

Behind the front, we’ll see winds start to pick up from the north later today and the skies will begin to clear out.  High winds through the Guadalupe Pass in far west Texas will be likely, but elsewhere, most of the gusts should remain below 25mph.  Most of the panhandle is seeing clear skies and pleasant conditions already.  The south plains, northwest and north Texas should be clearing out by later this afternoon which will make for a very pleasant evening.  Further south along the frontal boundary, cloud cover will remain settled in today and for most of the overnight hours.  Lows tonight behind the front will be quite pleasant and in the 50s across the panhandle and low to mid 60s further south and east across north Texas and across west central Texas. This will be a nice taste of early fall for these areas!  Along and ahead of the front, we’ll still be dealing with lows in the 70s and plenty of humidity.