Area forecast discussion National Weather Service San Angelo Texas 738 PM CDT Wednesday Jun 19 2013 Discussion... Look for VFR conditions to dominate west central Texas for the next 24 hours. Aviation below has details. && Aviation... Models continue an upper ridge over Texas for the next 24 hours. The NAM 925 mb relative humidity field does indicate stratus may return to our southern counties overnight. However...the GFS is less aggressive with possible stratus return. Thus...for this cycle I decided not to include any MVFR ceilings in any of our terminals. Aside from gusty northerly surface winds early this evening from thunderstorm outflow...plan for light southerly surface winds tonight around 10 knots or less. For tomorrow...expect gusty south to southeasterly surface winds...as a Lee surface trough across eastern New Mexico and far West Texas becomes more dominate. Huber && Previous discussion... /issued 340 PM CDT Wednesday Jun 19 2013/ Short term... strong to severe convection is ongoing across the Big Country this afternoon. This activity is occurring in the vicinity of a slowly southward moving surface boundary draped from northwest to southeast from near Lamesa...to Sweetwater...to Breckenridge. The environment is quite unstable...as evident from the MLCAPE values at or above 3000 j/kg. Effective shear values of near 40 kts have maintained organization in this convection with at least two supercells embedded within the cluster. This activity will continue to move to the southeast this afternoon...lingering into the evening hours and mainly affecting the Big Country and northern Heartland. I have noted the hrrr indicating a late night precipitation potential for the Concho Valley but I am playing this more conservative and keeping the forecast dry for the southern counties. Expect overnight lows generally in the lower 70s. However...some rain cooled areas will likely dip into the 60s. Tomorrow...the ridge is expected to take control with hot and dry conditions areawide. Temperatures will warm into the middle 90s across west central Texas with south winds of 15-20 miles per hour. Long term... a steady-state pattern of hot and dry conditions are expected for west central Texas...Friday through the middle of next week. Subtropical ridge will be our dominant weather influence. This feature will build/expand northeast from Texas toward the lower Great Lakes on Friday...and will remain anchored over Texas through the weekend and first part of next week. By the middle of next week...the GFS and European model (ecmwf) shift the center of the upper high northwest into New Mexico and Colorado. Associated subsidence will help to keep our rain chances minimal. The low-level thermal ridge will remain centered to our west... with some eastward expansion indicated next week. With this pattern and increased soil moisture from recent rainfall and evapotranspirative effects...expect little change in the daily temperatures through Monday. Could have maximum temperatures creeping up a few degrees as the week progresses however. && Preliminary point temps/pops... Abilene 73 95 73 95 73 / 20 0 0 0 0 San Angelo 73 96 72 96 72 / 5 0 0 0 0 Junction 71 94 71 93 71 / 0 0 0 0 0 && Sjt watches/warnings/advisories... none. && $$ Huber