We had a pretty chilly weekend here in Lubbock. High temperatures stayed only in the 40s. In fact, Saturday's high was only 41°! Well, today will begin the warm up as highs are back into the low 50s. With that said, the average high for today is 58° and 59° for tomorrow. Tomorrow's high will actually hit the average high right on, with light wind. The dry air is going to dominate the area through midweek. If we make it through Wednesday, which will will, with dry conditions, we'll tie the all-time record of days without measurable precipitation. Wednesday would be day 98 since we last saw that. The forecast starts to get tricky after that.
We're actually going to see cloudy skies on Wednesday and Thursday. However, the air is going to be very warm. We'll see highs in the mid 70s on Wednesday and low 70s Thursday. If we do not receive measurable precipitation Thursday, we'll break that all-time record. The question is if we can squeeze out some measurable rain before the cold front comes in. There will be tropical, moist air in place ahead of the front. That is the reason we'll have cloudy skies. Right now, it's looking like the cold front will come in Thursday night, into Friday morning. As the air gets cold, it will hit dry conditions. So, dry weather is going to win out. There is the possibility that moisture will fall in the form of a rain/flurry mix Friday morning. The above photo is showing the forecast at 6:00 pm Thursday. It's more likely we stay dry Thursday, but this forecast run shows light rain.
In the forecast model below, we remain dry, with sprinkles, or flurries. So as of now, we're not going to see measurable precipitation here in Lubbock. There may be light flurries mixed with rain in the southern Rolling Plains. This is a changing situation and obviously we're going to keep an eye on it. I would not count on seeing the precipitation. Highs will only be in the low 40s on Friday, before we warm up again moving into the weekend. It's just so hard to get precipitation during a La Nina period. The National Weather Service said Thursday that La Nina could weaken by April, or May. Hopefully it will be enough to get some rain across west Texas.
