Moisture finds way to area (31 May 2006)

By Joe Ruiz
Staff writer

Even with Monday and Tuesday’s precipitation, the rainfall total is still more than an inch below normal for San Angelo.

But the forecast hints at rain.

Areas of San Angelo received more than an inch of rain Monday evening and Tuesday morning. Here’s how it shaped up at San Angelo Regional Airport/Mathis Field:

- 0.14 inches reported as of midnight Monday.

- 1.38 more inches as of 5 p.m. Tuesday.

As of Tuesday afternoon, San Angelo has received 5.95 inches of rain since Jan. 1. The normal amount through May 30 is 7.58 inches.

The overnight storms were initiated by a dry line surface boundary that started in the eastern Permian Basin-area near Sweetwater and headed east, said Terry Huber, senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in San Angelo.

A dry line is the boundary between warm, humid air to the east and the drier air blowing in. It can act as a catalyst for storms to form as it moves eastward.

“This time of year, we usually get a low-level jet (stream) that develops overnight,” Huber said. “It’s very common.”

Monday night’s storms produced two reports to the weather service of hail in the region. Quarter-size hail was reported southeast of San Angelo at 8:50 p.m., and nickel-size hail was reported a minute later in the city.

There were no reports of damage due to the storms, according to San Angelo’s police dispatch.

The forecast for the remainder of the week calls for a continued chance of thunderstorms, with a 30 percent chance of storms beginning tonight and ending Thursday evening. Cloudy skies are predicted for the weekend through Sunday.

Temperatures are expected to stay around the 90-degree mark for the high, and overnight lows are likely to be in the mid-60s through the weekend.