Enjoy the 50s - We have some VERY COLD air heading our way

Clear skies, light winds, and dry air remained in place across Central Texas Saturday night into our Sunday morning. Those conditions allowed our temperatures to get very cold this morning. Widespread frost is ongoing this morning. Temperatures outside this morning are in the 20s to low 30s across Central Texas.

The remainder of the weekend will be on the cool side, but overall manageable. Hopefully you soaked up the sun we had on Saturday as clouds will be on the increase from the west throughout the day today. Breezy southeast winds expected with our temperatures warming into the low to mid 50s for the afternoon.

The increase in clouds is an indicator of some changes heading our way. A weak upper air disturbance approaches Central Texas late Sunday into Monday. This is going to bring back scattered rain showers and maybe a few rumbles of thunder into Central Texas. Dry air will be in place near the surface, so there’s limited moisture to work with. We expect to see scattered, light rain on Monday. It won’t be an all day rain event, but off-and-on showers are expected for much of the day until the storm system clears from west to east. It could be damp at times with rain totals expected to be about 1/4″ to 1/2″ - with the highest totals along and east of I-35. With the rain in the area on Monday - High temperatures look to be around the mid 40s to low 50s.

Tuesday will be cloudy and cool with highs in the upper 40s and low 50s. Clouds will help keep temperatures above freezing overnight into Wednesday. Wednesday looks to be the warmest day of the week with highs in the low to mid 50s… But then comes the very, very cold and dry air Thursday.

We’re expecting a cold snap for the Christmas holiday. An Arctic cold front arrives from the north on Thursday. The extremely cold air and wintry weather mainly passes to our north and east. We’re watching the possibility of light precipitation mainly to our north, near the Red River, early Thursday morning ahead of the front. We will monitor that activity to see how far south it will travel. The reason we don’t have precip chances with the front is the relatively dry air that will already be in place across Central Texas and then the additional push of even drier air that arrives with the front.

What we will see with the front is STRONG north winds - Around 20-30 MPH and stronger gusts - race into Central Texas. Highs will actually occur in the morning hours on Thursday, in the 40s, but temperatures will then drop significantly throughout the day. Temperatures in the afternoon look to be below freezing – With wind chill values in the SINGLE DIGITS - and it will just keep on getting colder as the sun sets.

The coldest weather settles in on Friday morning with temperatures down into the teens – With feels like temperatures close to 0°. Temperatures for the afternoon on Friday will struggle to warm above freezing and may not reach above freezing until Christmas Eve! It will be very cold approaching the holiday and really just a great time to spend some time inside watching Christmas movies.

Friday’s record low is -4° and the record lowest high is 24° both set in 1989, so we are not breaking records with this cold snap. The -4° record low temperature is also the coldest temperature ever recorded in Waco so it’s a very low bar to reach and we won’t get there. Either way though, it’s going to be very, very cold late next week.

Waking up Christmas Eve morning, temperatures look to be in the teens - and may struggle to warm above freezing again for the afternoon. Highs Saturday look to be in the mid 30s with a mix of sun and clouds. Christmas morning will be in the teens and low 20s and warm into the 40s for the afternoon with sunshine.

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