What a great day. Winds are rather light (that will change) and temperatures are getting to that "perfect" level with readings as of this writing in the 65-70 range with another 5 degrees expected before the afternoon is done. The air is nice and dry, with dewpoints in the 30s now (that to will change).

First the dewpoint situation. We're about to get dewpoints in the 50s+ to near 60 or so tomorrow. That moisture is now down towards the gulf coast area. It's starting to move to the north, and while the progress is slow now, notice that by tomorrow the progress will be a lot faster...

Here is the 1PM surface map, I've shaded in the dewpoints of 60 or above and outlined the 70+ dewpoints confined to the coastline for now.

Here is the 12hr RUC forecast for dewpoints...notice the dewpoints are on the move northwards...

The 60 degree dewpoints are the 1st lighter shade of orange. Now here are the surface winds which will be increasing all night long...eventually gusting to 25+ by daybreak (or earlier) tomorrow.

So the dewpoints (surface moisture) will increase rapidly later tonight into tomorrow AM...The surface winds are following suit, and eventually tomorrow, may gust to near 40 MPH. Those winds will be from the south. The temps in TX now are in the 80s and that air is heading this way. Don't be surprised if maybe for a few hours we have some low clouds around...the strong winds will mix the atmosphere enough to mix out that cloud cover.

Then we wait. As the air heats up tomorrow at the surface, aloft the air will be warming up as well. As a result we'll be "capped" through much of the day. Yesterday's thoughts concerning storms and the potential for severe weather has not changed. The front is due in between 7-10PM through the I-70 corridor. This should be enough to break the cap and a rapid increase in storms is expected from north to south before sunset tomorrow night. These storms obviously can be severe...with wind/hail being the main threats to whatever happens, especially through 10PM or so. Here is what the SPC thinks...

These are probabilities for severe weather. The SPC looks at these things a bit differently in a sense than what you might think of...here is their explanation...

The probabilities used in the SPC Convective Outlooks are known as subjective probabilities. The forecasters make their best estimate of the probability of an event occurring. The probability values forecast are not created automatically by a computer or via statistics, but by the SPC outlook forecaster. 

The probabilities that you see on the graphics represent the probability of one or more events occurring within 25 miles of any point during the outlook period. This definition is used as the probability of severe weather at an given point is quite small. Also the Convective Outlook is not a small-scale, short-term forecast, but one that covers the entire U.S. for periods up to 24 hours. There is a large amount of uncertainty in forecasting severe weather on these scales. How many times have you experienced a tornado in your neighborhood? For most people, the answer is never. Now think of how many times severe weather has occurred within 25 miles of your location. It's probably safe to say that you can think of some close by severe weather events. How large of an area is a circle with a 25 mile radius?
The front moving through will drop our temperatures some 30-40 degrees on Monday as a blustery start to the work week is expected with highs 45-50 or so in the PM...with NW winds of 20-30 MPH.

The rest of the week looks pretty good with a rapid warm-up on Tuesday, followed by a couple of weak disturbances on THU and SAT with some rain chances there.

Check out the swing of temperatures @ the 5000 foot level, showing these airmasses moving in and out.

Pretty impressive swings coming up...

Joe