The Brazos Valley, along with most of Central and East Texas, has about a 24 to 48 hour window for the potential to see some rain across this drought stricken landscape.  With large wildfires burning in Grimes, Walker and Trinity Counties, if there ever was a time for the sky to open up -- this is it.

Tuesday morning, small, quick showers roamed across the Central and Eastern portions of the Brazos Valley.  As of the noon hour, that light activity was confined to mainly Austin, Waller and Montgomery Counties.  By that same token, walk outside and it will feel pretty much like walking right into a sauna.  That's not a bad thing however, because that means there is plenty of moisture in the atmosphere to work with and hopefully turn into showers and thunderstorms as we reach our peak daytime heating. 

Working against us today: a small batch of warmer air in the upper levels of the atmosphere.  While the "cap" in the atmosphere isn't quite as strong as it has been over the past couple of weeks, it will be slightly less conducive to allowing activity to form today.  That being said, there is still hope.  As mentioned earlier, we'll heat up into the mid-to-upper 90s this afternoon, which may be good enough to get scattered showers and storms to fire up in areas across the Brazos Valley.  We do expect some to get wet this afternoon -- however, we also expect many folks to stay dry, and miss out on the rain all together. The Pinpoint Forecast Model, our specialized computer model made here in studio, seems less than optimistic about this afternoon's chances.

Now onto Wednesday's outlook. 

As a weak cold front sags a little farther to the south, some cooler air will work into the upper levels of the atmosphere.  That mixed with warm, tropical air surging into South Texas, out of the Gulf, will continue our rain chances at a 40% to 50% shot.  As opposed to Tuesday's forecast, the Pinpoint Model is calling for more widespread, scattered activity to move into the area.  

If storms can get going over the next 48 hours, they should be slow moving.  That right there still brings hope for some soaking rains in portions of the area.  As for now, you can watch the radar along side us in the weather center by clicking here or try out our New Interactive Radar which comes complete with a forecast model of its own along with other storm tracking tools.