A strong cold front is heading for Texas this week, slated to plummet temperatures and bring stormy weather back to the Lone Star State. From the Texas Panhandle all the way down to South Texas, this burst of cooler air will have sweeping impacts.
Just as Texas Panhandle towns like Dalhart and Amarillo climb into the 80s early on this week, a cold front should barrel past the Texas border Tuesday night, April 28, and significantly cool things down. Temperatures will continue to dip well into the weekend.
“With the overnight cold front through Wednesday’s highs will only be in the 70s, and we should be going downhill from there, as both cool and potentially moist air from the north will move into the Panhandles, as well as mild tropical air from a system over the southwest,” the National Weather Service Amarillo office warns.
By Friday, temperatures across the region shouldn’t climb past the mid-50s – a whopping 30-degree decrease since Tuesday afternoon. But all this cooler air is bringing storm chances back.
There’s a 70% to 90% chance of showers on Thursday and Friday across the Texas Panhandle before a mostly sunny and cool weekend. However, things could get severe in North Texas as the front moves in.
Thunderstorm odds creep into the greater Dallas-Fort Worth metro area by Tuesday, with chances quickly climbing into the evening hours. Forecasters says these storms could slam the region with large hail.
“Thunderstorms will develop during the afternoon and spread southeast with time along the front across the eastern half of the CWA. Some of these storms are likely to be severe with a large hail and damaging wind threat. This activity will spread southeast with time, diminishing in coverage Tuesday night,” the NWS Dallas-Fort Worth office reports.
It will spell much cooler days ahead for Dallas, however. Early week highs in the low 90s will fade to the low 70s by mid-week and sink all the way to the mid-60s by Friday and Saturday.
Even South Central Texas cities, like San Antonio and Austin, will see a shivering 25-degree dip in afternoon highs between Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, though it’ll be a slow decline spread across the several days. For this region, it’s the latter half of the week that’ll bring the gloomy storm clouds and cooler days.
A low, 20% chance of thunderstorms looms over San Antonio on Wednesday and Thursday. Those odds climb to 40% to 50% by Thursday and Friday as the cooldown sets in, dipping evening temperatures into the 60s and afternoon highs into the 70s by Friday.
But Saturday will actually feel fairly chilly with temperatures never expected to exceed 70 degrees and nighttime lows dropping into the mid-50s.
“A cold front will move through North Texas and into our CWA. Ahead of the front will be another hot, humid day, but the front should make enough progress to bring some relief to the northern I-35 Corridor and Hill Country,” the NWS Austin-San Antonio office predicts.