San Angelo, Here’s a Thanksgiving Holiday Weather Update for Travelers

There’s nothing more confusing than West Texas weather, and during the Thanksgiving Holiday, residents and travelers never know what they can expect from one moment to the next. Some years, it feels like spring outside; during others, winter storms have hit, making road conditions dangerous for holiday travelers.

However, this year, road conditions look fair for people who plan to stay in the area, or who plan to travel to the east and south of Texas, said Mike Johnson, meteorologist with the National Weather Service of San Angelo.

“Tomorrow should be a lot like today as far as temperatures are concerned,” Johnson said. “We should warm into the 70s. There will be overcast throughout the day with strong southerly winds.”

Johnson added that as we go into Thanksgiving night, a strong cold front is expected to move across the area between midnight and sunrise. However, we are expected to stay above freezing temperatures in the Concho Valley, so the chance of wintry weather is pretty small. Travelers would have to go up north toward Sweetwater to get those impacts.

The big issue, however, is the potential for heavy rainfall as we move into Friday and Saturday, Johnson stated.

“We’re going to have this cold front that’s going through the area, so that’s going to be a factor,” he said. “We also got Hurricane Sandra down south of the Baja Peninsula that’s going to be moving up and across Mexico.”

“We’re going to see much colder temperatures on Friday, and we probably won’t get out of the 30s on Saturday,” he noted. “It’s going to be wet, but that moisture will be liquid and not frozen.”

Although that system won’t affect us, the Concho Valley will definitely see a large impact on the moisture that comes across the area, so the area will experience 2 to 300 times the amount of moisture that’s typical this time of year.

“Rainfall amounts are expected to be about 3 to 5 inches across much of West Central Texas, and that includes San Angelo, Abilene, and Brownwood. It gets even higher as you go near the Metroplex,” Johnson explained.

For travelers who plan on traveling to north Texas, Johnson said the problem areas will be up in the Lubbock and Amarillo areas, and may reach as far east as Childress and Wichita Falls, mainly on the Cap Rock and part of the South Plains to the north near Sweetwater. These areas are going to have issues, and that looks to be mainly Friday night.