AUSTIN, Texas — Editor's note: This story is no longer being updated. For KVUE's most recent weather coverage, click here.
Astronomical spring officially began on Tuesday, and now we're tracking our first storm chance of the spring season. Thursday will bring scattered to widespread storms to Central Texas along with a risk for severe weather.
As of Thursday midday, the Storm Prediction Center has dropped the "slight" risk for severe weather from the Coastal Plains. At this time, all of Central Texas is under a "marginal" - level 1 out of 5 - risk for strong storms. The primary threats will be hail and strong winds.
The severe weather window will be 6 p.m. to midnight Thursday.
Strong storms have already developed across the Hill Country Thursday evening. These storms will continue to organize, and will gradually drift eastward later this evening.
The latest high-resolution model data shows these storms moving into the I-35 corridor and the Austin metro by 8 or 9 p.m. Thursday. It's not a guarantee that storms will be as widespread as what the model data is showing, but we do expect at least scattered strong storms for parts of the metro Thursday evening.
It is not a guarantee that a storm will move over where you live, but the overall rain chance is approximately 70%. The storm threat will end for eastern portions of the KVUE area by midnight Thursday.
Unfortunately, this system likely won't be a big rainmaker for the locations that need it the most. However, there could be a fairly widespread half-inch to 1 inch of rain for areas that get under a storm, as was the case just north of Fredericksburg, where a gauge recorded just over one inch of rain. The highest likelihood of more of these will be along and east of I-35.
After Thursday, the weekend is looking very pleasant with highs in the mid- to upper 70s and no chance for rain. Another storm and rain chance is expected on Monday of next week.
The KVUE Weather team will keep a close eye on this developing forecast.
In the meantime, the extended forecast can be found below:
