Messages
Drier air will diminish thunderstorm chances today and Saturday, with temperatures climbing several degrees above normal again.
Moisture will return for much of next week, with thunderstorm chances spreading west to east.
Plaincast — the National Weather Service forecast, decoded into plain English
Plaincast
What the forecast actually says — NWS Area Forecast Discussions, decoded into plain English.
Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for El Paso, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.
Discussion
WV imagery showing upper high center over the Sonoran Desert. Polar jet has impinged somewhat toward our area but remaining north. Within and under the high, recycled moisture persists over Arizona and southern New Mexico. Satellite and KEPZ sounding show PWs around 1.2 inches this afternoon. PW trend for Friday and the weekend is to shed about another .2-.3 inches as the upper high moves from far western New Mexico Friday to the lower Mississippi Valley Sunday. This will tend to push any existing moisture further west. Thus low chance of rain will continue but mainly for the mountains and areas west of the RG Valley. Temperatures will also be warmest during this period with lowland highs approaching 100 degrees.
Monday and Tuesday. moisture continues to increase as upper high allows increasing southerly flow aloft. PWs approach 1.3-1.4 inches. Expect rain chances all areas to increase significantly, with low/moderate flood risk. Main upper high almost as far east as the Carolinas by Tuesday. Despite this good location for moisture advection, the European model continues to be a bit more bearish with rain as the upper ridge out of the high continues to nose westward over New Mexico. However either solution looks promising.
Wednesday into next weekend. upper high generally begins drifting west again, likely forcing much of the moisture west toward the Arizona line. The one interesting feature toward the end of this period is the possibility of a polar jet short wave dropping into New Mexico Saturday. This would briefly bring the moisture plume east again across the forecast area, with some severe storm potential. Still a long ways out though.
This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole El Paso discussion at /o/EPZ/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.
Data from the National Weather Service. Translated by Claude. About · For developers & agents · Subscribe: RSS feed for this office · Source on GitHub