Plaincast — the National Weather Service forecast, 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 Dallas/Fort Worth, 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.

Area Forecast Discussion · National Weather Service Dallas/Fort Worth (FWD) · issued Friday, November 13 at 4:52 AM CST.

Messages

Mostly clear skies and near normal temperatures (highs in the 60s and low-70s) are expected Friday.

A weekend disturbance will bring widespread rain (90-100% chance) and well below normal temperatures (highs in the upper-40s and 50s).

Near to below normal temperatures (highs 50s and 60s) are expected next week through Wednesday.

Short Term

(Tonight through Saturday) Issued at 1252 AM CST Fri Nov 13 2026

Cool and tranquil fall weather is expected today as a shortwave ridge traverses the Central and South Great Plains. Further west, a shortwave trough will quickly move from the California/Baja West Coast into the southern Rockies. Weak synoptic scale subsidence and dry air aloft associated with the passing ridge should keep the region dry with plentiful sunshine. At the surface, a back-door cold front will have pushed through the region from the northeast Thursday night into Friday morning bringing light northeast winds of 5-10 mph and much more seasonal temperatures than what has been observed earlier this week. Highs will range from the mid-60s near the Red River to the low and mid-70s in Central Texas. By the end of the day Friday, high clouds may begin to stream in from the west as the West Coast trough approaches the Plains.

By Saturday, a negatively tilted trough will extend from West Texas northwestward into the Pacific Northwest. As such, general troughing will become the predominant upper-level flow regime over the Central CONUS with an embedded shortwave/mid-level vort max in the Central Rockies. This disturbance will move southeast towards the South Plains throughout the day on Saturday. As such, increasing forcing for ascent and moisture return in advance of this storm will result in increasing cloudiness and the development of rain showers by the evening. Scattered showers (40-60% chance) are expected west of US-281 by the end of the day Saturday with more isolated coverage (20-30% chance) between US-281 and the I-35 corridor. Widespread cloud cover along with increasing showers from west to east will result in highs Saturday being near to slightly below average (highs in the 60s).

This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Dallas/Fort Worth discussion at /o/FWD/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.