Widespread rain possible Friday night

It’s been a dreary and chilly but mostly dry Black Friday across Central Texas. Thanksgiving on the other hand was wet across the area. Rain totals were around 0.25″ to 2″+ inches yesterday alone. We’re watching an upper level low across southern New Mexico and west Texas. That system has been bringing rain to areas out to our west and south throughout the day on Friday. That low is forecast to lift northeast and move through Friday night into Saturday morning bringing a 100% chance for rain across all of Central Texas. An additional 1 to 2 inches of rain on top of what fell on Thanksgiving looks likely as the system moves through.

Rain coverage increases as the sunsets Friday.. Widespread moderate to heavy rain looks likely after midnight into Saturday morning. Some lightning and rumbles of thunder and small hail will be possible in stronger storms, but flooding will be the rain concern with this round of rain. Since the heaviest rain will fall while it’ll be dark, make sure you are extra careful on those roadways if you are planning on doing any traveling.

The widespread overnight rain starts to head out of Central Texas around sunrise Saturday. Most of the area looks to be dry by lunchtime. Forecast models are bringing in that drier air as the upper level low lifts further northeast. We may still see some wrap around showers on the back side of this system across our northern and eastern counties into the afternoon, but the better chance for rain showers Saturday afternoon looks to be across North Texas. After the morning rain, we may see some peeks of sunshine through the clouds Saturday afternoon and temperatures will warm into the mid-to-upper 50s.

Sunday features more sunshine with temperatures climbing into the low to mid 60s! A slight warming trend continues Monday into Tuesday. More clouds return Monday, but we’ll still see enough sunshine to boost temperatures into the mid-60s again. We look to see the warmest temperatures we’ve seen since November 10th on Tuesday as gusty south winds pump in warmer and more humid air. Highs on Tuesday are forecast to reach into the mid 70s, which is likely to be 10°+ warmer than average.

A cold front is set to slide into Central Texas late Tuesday into early Wednesday. As the front moves through we could see a few showers and storms, but the better chances look to form to our south and east. It’ll be a strong front as our temperatures will dip back into the 50s Wednesday and Thursday and lows in the 30s! Another front and storm system could roll through next weekend, but there is a lot of uncertainty with what’s going to happen with that system.

The Waco Regional Airport picked up 2.33 inches of rain on Thursday. This now makes Thanksgiving 2022 the wettest Thanksgiving on record beating the old record wettest Thanksgiving back in 1958 when 1.24″ of rain fell. That 2.33″ was also 0.02″ shy of the record rain amount for November 24th set back in 1913.

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