Big plans to party like it's 1999....I mean the end of 2012 / beginning of 2013 tonight? Planning on hopping in the car to join family this New Year's Eve? Like one of our Weather Watchers, looking to close in on 40" of rain for the year? Well, snag your fancy umbrella...we've got a soggy outlook for this last day of 2012.

Slow Moving Upper-Level System

We've already had a few light showers to drizzle fall in the Brazos Valley this Monday.  As we head into the afternoon hours, we should start to see the scattered shower activity pick up.  A slow moving system is swinging in from the west and won't fully clear the State of Texas until the end of the week.  With that being said, today is the best chance to find rain across the area, especially as a cold front slides through tonight, but it is not 100% out of the question that we won't find a few light showers this week.

Scattered light showers are expected to try to light up the radar screen by mid-afternoon, with rain chances collecting and becoming a better possibility as that cold front slowly chugs through the area from this evening into the early hours of Tuesday morning.  With that front, stronger thunderstorms and deeper convection will be possible, which could lead to heavy downpours as we are watching the ball drop at the midnight hour.  Farther to the south? Expect the best chance to find heavy rain as we enter the first, early hours of 2013.  Any rain chance looks to be over by sunrise Tuesday.  

PinPoint Computer Forecast Model

Here are a few, select stops on the early morning run of our in-house computer forecast model:

How Much Rain Could Fall?

We've run both our hi-res and low-res computer models this morning to try and get an estimate on how much rain will collect in area rain gauges by Tuesday morning.  The hi-res model (pictured first) may be overdoing rain chances a bit.  The low-res version brings totals down some -- but what both together show is that the heavier and higher rain totals are expected in our southern counties.  I don't think it will be a stretch to say that half an inch to one and a half inches of rain is out of the question area-wide.

New Year's Celebration

It won't be the coldest celebration of a New Year, but it could be the wettest in quite some time.  Here's a look at your forecast for tonight:

Have a very safe and happy New Year's.  We'll see you in 2013!