DALLAS – Residents of Texas should brace themselves for significant weather changes as the southern Plains and southern Rockies face threats of heavy rain, snow, sleet and potential flash floods later this week.
An upper-level low-pressure system moving across the Southwest toward the south-central U.S. will combine with abundant moisture to produce widespread precipitation in Texas beginning Wednesday.
With repeated rounds of rain persisting through the end of the workweek, flash flooding will become a concern on Thursday and Friday, the FOX Forecast Center said.
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With the potential for saturated soils after the initial round of heavy rain on Wednesday, flooding is possible despite low amounts of instability in the atmosphere.
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Snow is likely on the western side of the system, especially from the southern Rockies into the southern High Plains. This includes a significant portion of New Mexico’s eastern half and the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.
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The FOX Forecast Center said some areas in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles could pick up 1-3 inches of snow, while the elevated terrain in New Mexico and Colorado has the potential to receive up to a foot of fresh snow by the end of the week.
“The big snow totals will be up in the mountains,” FOX Weather Meteorologist Britta Merwin said. “Texas stays in all rain. This is probably the best news that you could ask for. We will have to look out for the panhandle, but in terms of Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Waco and Austin, it’s all going to be above freezing, and these are areas that can really battle with ice storms.”
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The amount of rainfall expected this week and beyond is uncertain because the various computer forecast models predict different outcomes, according to the FOX Forecast Center.
Some models indicate that heavy rain will occur widely across Florida and the Southeast by the end of the week. However, the most trusted models suggest that heavy rain will be concentrated in southern parts of Florida, or even farther south, due to high pressure at the surface.
For the weekend, some rain looks to move into the Southeast, but there is a large amount of uncertainty, particularly about how far north the rain could spread.