Austin weather: Cloudy, cooler with rain ahead

Happy Friday, everybody. 15 minutes after 7 o'clock. Thanks for stopping by. Join us on Good Day Austin. We had a spectacular sunset yesterday on our Santa Rita Ranch Camp. The sky turned pink and red. And then this was interesting. See the line of cumulus clouds. That was the front pushing on through, generating some clouds. Now a drop of rain, some gusty winds. Now we're enjoying a beautiful sunrise on our standard insurance time-lapse camera. Soak up the rays of sun. This nice weather will slowly disappear as we go into the weekend. Today, it's all about the winds and change coming in from the north, reinforcing the low humidity and keeping our highs closer to where they should be for this time of year. The winds won't be super strong today. We'll be out of the north, gusting 15 to 25 miles per hour for the first half of the day, and then they settle down late today going into the overnight hours. On the Muggy Meter. The air is very pleasant, and it's going to stay that way with this front shutting down that Gulf moisture. Around here, it was moisture starved, so it didn't set off any rain. As it got closer to the coastline and encountered all that Gulf moisture, boom, storms blew up offshore, and now that front's pushing the rain away from Texas, and the chilly, dry air mass is settling on in, 30s up across the panhandle. 58 in Dallas, 57 in San Antonio, 71 in Corpus Christi. They're not feeling that northerly wind just yet. We are, though. Keeps getting cooler and cooler around here. Upper 40s to wake up to in Fredericksburg and Mason. 54 for our friends in Lampasas. 55 in San Marcos. 58 in Lockhart. 56 in Bastrop. Good morning, Elgin. You're at 54, along with your friends in Lakeway. And here in Austin. Sun is out full force. Look out for that sunshine glare if you're heading eastbound this morning. It's brutal. 55 degrees, northwesterly wind drying out the air and stirring up some more pollens. The ragweed count went from low to moderate. Mold count went from high to moderate. It's podcast time. And our pet of the day, Chester, loves to run around the house and loves eggs. Sounds like my dog. And the weather looks fantastic for our furry friends to be out and about. All day long with very sunny and dry skies with a chilly start and then afternoon highs barely making it into the low to mid 70s. Some of us, if the clouds start to thicken up, we'll stay in the 60s in the hill country. And then tonight, we'll go from the 60s this evening to mid to upper 50s first thing tomorrow morning. And then even cooler times are ahead. For the weekend, as we experience less sunshine. No rain worries for all the high school football games the last week of a regular season. 60s all evening long. Doesn't seem that chilly, but you're going to need the long sleeves, layer up. Really have to bundle up up north with 30s and 40s. We're just at the leading edge of the cool down. Here's the low that delivered the cold front. This low is going to deliver some more rain. Just poor timing. It's going to happen for For the weekend, but boy, we do desperately need some more rain. And this one is going to crank out the rain. It's looking more and more promising seeing that it will. The upper low is over Arizona right now. It's going to dip into Mexico, gather up the moisture from the Pacific and Gulf, eventually send it this way. It's going to be amazing how fast the rain chances increase this weekend, and the air is so dry right now. That moisture is going to recover very nicely in advance of this low as it pulls in enough moisture, we believe, to generate widespread rain. When will it happen? Most of it, Saturday night into Sunday. And with the slow motion of that upper low, we could have multiple rounds of rain all the way through the start of next week. Today, leave the umbrella at home. Isolated showers during the day on Saturday. Saturday's going to be the driest day of the two this weekend. Becoming more widespread Saturday night into Sunday. And then back to scattered on Monday. Highs in the 60s with lows in the 50s. With clouds dominating and rain chances jumping up to 60% Saturday night, 80% coming up on Sunday. We'll zoom on in with our high-res future cast. There's a look at some of that cloud cover that's lingering to the north and west. That could keep you in the 60s. The rest of us, the sun's going to be out in full force. Soak up that beautiful weather because it clouds up. It's going to be very dreary this weekend. Not a total washout. Before 5 o'clock on Saturday, barely any rain. And then on and off light to moderate rain showing up mid to late evening on Saturday. A preview of what's to come because look what happens first thing Sunday morning. Widespread, heavier rain that could last all the way through early afternoon before it starts to break up late on Sunday. The inches of rain just to our south. They could pick up two to five inches of rain in South Texas. Around here, on average, we're thinking a half an inch to one inch with the highest totals over our southern counties. And the European weather model has been on board with this soggy setup all week long, and it's increasing the rain chances even more to an inch and a half to two inches here in Austin. There's that slight risk for flooding in South Texas. Our southern counties are under a marginal risk coming up. For the second half of the weekend, they could use some rain down there in South Texas. Look at all the spots down there under severe to extreme drought. We need some rain, especially from Austin eastward, a level two drought, and then just abnormally dry conditions into the hill country. Six to ten days out, it looks like we're going to stay wetter than average. Up to the north and east, it's going to really dry out. And then as we get closer to the middle of the month, rain chances could increase even more. No rain worries today. More sun than clouds for a lot of us, except out across the hill country. And we're banking on that sunshine to warm us up to 76 today. And the wind's eventually settling down in the afternoon. Tonight, clouding up, low of 59. Slight rain chances during the day with highs in the 60s on Saturday. Still in the 60s on Sunday with the rain chances increasing to 60% Saturday night, 80% on Sunday. About a 50-50 chance of more showers on Monday. And then we're starting to trend drier, a little warmer as we near Veterans Day.