After a mild start to the week, Dallas-Fort Worth is about to feel a lot more like late April. Highs near 78 degrees are expected by Wednesday as warm, humid air rolls in from the Gulf, but that same moisture will drag showers and thunderstorms along with it. The rain arrives as early as tonight and sticks around through midweek. Then, beginning Friday, a more aggressive storm pattern takes over, bringing daily chances of severe weather that could stretch into the weekend.
It is a setup that matters for anyone planning outdoor time, managing a commute through flood-prone corridors, or flying in and out of the region over the next seven days.
Midweek warmth and rain
The National Weather Service office in Fort Worth describes a clear warming trend driven by Gulf moisture streaming northward across Central and North Texas. In its Area Forecast Discussion, the most recent issuance available at the time of this writing, the office projects the DFW high reaching approximately 78 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday. Because the AFD is a rolling product that is replaced with each new issuance, readers should check the link above for the latest version. Isolated thunderstorms are possible overnight into Tuesday, with more widespread showers expected to develop Wednesday as the moisture deepens.
Rainfall will not fall evenly. The NWS local forecast page estimates storm totals near 0.1 inches along the Red River corridor but 0.5 to 1 inch south of US-84. That gradient puts the southern tier of the metroplex and surrounding agricultural counties in line for the heaviest totals. Even moderate accumulations can overwhelm urban storm drains during short, intense downpours, so drivers on low-lying stretches of I-35W, SH-360, and other flood-prone routes should allow extra time Tuesday and Wednesday.
Late-week severe threat builds
The midweek rain is a warm-up act. The NWS Fort Worth office warns that an unsettled pattern returns by the weekend, and the Storm Prediction Center’s Day 4 through 8 convective outlook backs that up. Its probability contours show a 15 percent or greater chance of severe weather within 25 miles of any given point across parts of North Texas during the late-week and weekend window. In plain terms, that means the atmosphere will have the ingredients for damaging wind gusts, large hail, or isolated tornadoes, though exactly when and where storms fire remains uncertain at this range…