Frequent Storms, Flooding to Diminish in Texas During June

By Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist

May 25,2015; 8:20PM,EDT

 

 

Severe storm- and flood-weary residents of Texas and the southern Plains will soon get a break as a change in the weather pattern develops.

According to AccuWeather Chief Long Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok, "We expect the jet stream to weaken and pull northward over the United States moving forward into early June."
The jet stream is a river of fast-moving air high above the ground that can enhance rainfall and affect thunderstorm intensity under certain conditions.
"With the weaker jet stream, farther north storms will tend to be less frequent and somewhat less intense over Texas and the southern Plains," Pastelok said.

There will still be some shower and thunderstorm activity over the South Central states, which is good news from a drought and reservoir-filling standpoint. However, with less rain less often, the coverage and severity of flooding will tend to diminish.
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Some moisture will still be present over the South Central states. This moisture when combined with intense June sunshine and heating will still produce a risk of widely separated or infrequent severe thunderstorms in the region.
Rainfall from much of Texas to Kansas is likely to be close to average, rather than the two to five times the monthly average that has occurred during May.

One such round of storms may occur late this week as a weaker storm relative to other systems this spring rolls out of the Rockies.

The area of frequent rain and thunderstorms is likely to shift farther east moving forward into June.
According to AccuWeather Meteorologist Mark Paquette, "A slight dip in the jet stream is likely to set up over the Mississippi Valley, which would tend to pump moisture into the Southeastern states during June."
An uptick in the frequency of severe weather may also occur farther north over the Plains and Midwest with the pattern change.
A wild card in diminished rainfall for the South Central states would be the track of moisture from a tropical system forecast to develop in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Having a tropical system form in these waters this time of the year is not uncommon, nor is the potential for heavy rain reaching the Mexico coast.
However, for that moisture to make the trip over the mountains and into Texas this time of year is highly unlikely.
"What is most likely is for the tropical system to diminish over the cool waters farther north in the Pacific, before having impact the U.S.," Paquette said.