Austin weather: Beautiful day but will we see rain?

Nice and drier times are ahead. Happy Thursday, everybody. 15 minutes after 7 o'clock. Thanks for stopping by. Join us on Good Day Austin. We ended the rainy streak yesterday. We have a beautiful day to look forward to. It starts this morning. With that front coming through overnight, it made sure we didn't wake up to any patchy fog or cloud cover. It looks amazing on our standard insurance sky cam. It's going to look that way all day long. It's all quiet on our MaxLive radar. It's going to stay that way for the rest of the week. The floodgate operations have ended out across the Hill Country. All the rivers out there are below flood stage. Lake Travis continues to slowly go up. And it's at 101% full. It's gone up four feet since the rain event, 15 feet above its November average. Lake Buchanan is holding steady because the flooding rains happened downstream of that lake. And you will not need the umbrella today unless you want to block out that intense sunshine. Rain is unlikely for everybody, not only here at home, but across the entire state as that dry air mass moves on in. It keeps getting cooler and cooler outside. Look how widespread the 40s are from Waco to San Angelo, the Permian Basin to Amarillo and El Paso. We have our share of 40s out in the Hill Country, like in Atlanta at 46 degrees, 49 in San Saba, 48 in Lampasas. Everybody else in the 50s, including Elgin at 54. Hello, Pflugerville at 58. 55 up in Lago Vista. Great morning to be on the hike and bike trail. A little chill in the air. Probably barely break a sweat with the lack of moisture in place. And the latest allergy count, where are the pollens? They're nonexistent after all that rain cleaned out the pollens. Mold on the low end. It's podcast time. Our dog of the day, Lottie. Yeah, ready for sweater weather. Got the sweater ready. Oh, that is a cute dog. Loves to be outside soaking up the rays of sunshine and then loves to wrestle with the cats. Want to wrestle with cats or get that dog walk in? The weather's going to be just fine for all that fun all day long. 70s area-wide. Then we're in the 50s and 60s this evening. We'll turn into 40s and 50s first thing tomorrow morning. Wind's not very strong today. They're coming at us from the north, though, keeping the humidity low and keeping our afternoon high seasonal. Full day of sunshine ahead of us today. A starry sky tonight, barely in clouds. We won't see the clouds marching back into the picture until... Friday night. This is when the moisture will rapidly return to the area in advance of the next Pacific low. Tons of sunshine today, tomorrow. Enjoy, because the cloudy, dreary conditions are back this weekend going into early next week. This humongous western low is going to kick out this dome of high pressure that's going to give us the lovely weather today and tomorrow. And now it looks like the low is going to be closer to us. Yesterday, the models had the track way up here. It's moving into Texas, and we're gaining confidence that we'll have a really good chance of rain for the second half of the weekend. And with the upper-level energy closer to us and this system being stronger, the rain may be more intense, and we may have a few more thunderstorms in the area during the day on Sunday. Unlike the last one, this one's going to be a quick hitter. It's going to be in and out of here, and we're not expecting four days of rain. The first round of rain could get here late Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening. It'll be isolated, spotty showers, and then the rain coverage increases now Sunday morning through early to mid-afternoon. Yesterday, the malls wanted to bring in the rain Sunday night. Now, if you have outdoor plans for Sunday, have plan B ready to go. It could be a washout. Here's a sneak peek of the weekend forecast. It's going to look and feel totally different than the next two days. Lots of clouds, slowing down the warm-up, highs in the 60s. 40% chance of rain starting Saturday afternoon. We'll double those rain chances coming up on Sunday. After this rainmaker moves on out, it's going to send in a stronger front into the area, and we could have highs early next week in the 50s. How much rain are we talking about here? Future rain totals trending higher. The last system, the highest totals were in the Hill Country. This go-around looks like the highest rain totals will be east of I-35, where we could pick up an inch, inch and a half. That would be perfect placement because this is where we still have a severe drought. Both long-range forecast models show rain. The European weather model, trending wetter, that usually does a better job with these western lows. And we're tracking another parade of storm systems next week and also the following week. Keeping us wetter than average and these rainmakers will come across every three or four days. Today, no rain worries, no fog out there either. It'll be bright and sunny all day long. With a big warm-up with that dry air mass in place, it cools off efficiently at night, but then warms up quite a bit during the day, but still nice and comfy with that low humidity. Enjoy a high of 77. Even colder tonight underneath that clear sky. We'll drop to 52 here in Austin, 40s outside the city limits. A mild finish with lots of sunshine for the work week, and then clouding up, turning cooler and rainy this weekend. Even cooler with drier skies behind that next cold front early next week.