***Friday Blog Update can be found by scrolling towards the bottom of the page, under the image of the 7 day forecast***

After 2 soggy days, we welcome an old friend back to the Brazos Valley -- sunshine!  Don't get me wrong, it was great to receive 3" to 7" (area wide) of drought denting rainfall...but sunshine isn't something we've seen too much of over the past several weeks.  In fact, we've had more overcast days than sunny days since winter officially started on December 21st.  You may be in more of the Annie "The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow" variety this morning, but here's what I listened to this morning putting the forecast together:

Enjoy the Sunshine While You Can...

 Just as fast as we moved the rain and cloud cover out of the Brazos Valley, we'll work cloud cover and then rain chances right back in.  In fact, after high clouds / patchy areas of fog start things off for us on Friday, the afternoon hours tomorrow will call for overcast, gray conditions to return.  

Our next upper-level trough swings across the Rockies and will drag down our next batch of cold air with it.  There's a kicker to this weather system though -- it doesn't full pass us by until the middle to end of next week.  That will spell out a multi-day overrunning event that will leave the Brazos Valley cloudy and possibly damp.

Next Cold Front Scheduled For Saturday
 

Believe it or not -- highs will reach the low 70s Friday and Saturday.  Then we'll lose the bottom to our highs and lows once again.  

As our next cold front swings in, it brings a chance for scattered showers and thunderstorms (40% to 50% chance) along and ahead of it, followed a few hours later by a breezy north wind and shallow, cold air.

It's always tricky forecasting a cold air event like this due to long range computer model's poor ability to grasp shallow, Arctic air masses like the one that is moving in.  That being said, highs are expected to only top off in the upper 40s to MAYBE low 50s Sunday through a better part of the beginning of next week.

Cloudy, Breezy, Chilly and Damp...

...that's the outlook.  With that cold air sitting at the surface and warmer winds riding up and over it in the mid-to-upper levels of the atmosphere, it'll bring on a cloudy outlook as long as the main trough of our weather sits to our west.  

In an overrunning situation, cloud cover is the least of "gloomy" weather that you'll see but it also looks like we'll get the most that overrunning has to offer: off-and-on drizzle, mist and the occasional light shower.  As of this morning, the forecast calls for anywhere between a 30% to 50% chance for a dreary, damp forecast Sunday through Tuesday.

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Here's a quick update on the timing of rain and how temperatures look to turn out this weekend.

Expect a feeling of Spring in the air (under cloudier skies that is) as afternoon highs top off in the 70s Friday and Saturday.  A good layer of shallow, winter air will slide in Saturday night / Sunday and still look to keep things on the cold, blustery, cloudy and, at times, drizzly / misty side to wrap up the weekend.

Here's the morning run of the PinPoint Computer Forecast Model on rain chances heading into your Saturday plans:

All that equals out to a weekend outlook that pictures up along these lines: