Scattered downpours and storms develop overnight into Thursday for some | KXAN Forecast (May 20)

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]All right, Nick joining us now, as you are watching some storms. Not really in the metro, in the hill country you were saying?

[00:00:04]>> No, way out there, far northwestern Mason County. We mentioned a 10% storm chance before midnight. This is barely even going to amount to 10% of the area seeing rain before midnight. But it is a nasty storm nonetheless. And you can actually see from our camera there at Santa Rita Ranch in Liberty Hill off in the distance there.

[00:00:25]Those are the clouds and lightning flashes from that distant thunderstorm working its way through Mason County.

[00:00:31]So, occasional flashes of lightning right here you're seeing it. Yes, there's some street lights, too, but right in the clouds there you're seeing some distant lightning there from our Santa Rita Ranch camera. This storm affecting very few of us, but still worthy of our attention as it is a severe thunderstorm. In fact, since I last checked in with you, the National Weather Service have tweaked the severe thunderstorm warning box to now include a little bit more of Mason County. Still north of Streeter, northwest of the city of Mason. This corner right here is the only part of this warning that is in the KXAN viewing area. Still the hail is not in our viewing area yet, and the hail size is coming down. So, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the worst part of the storm is likely going to miss most if not all of Mason County.

[00:01:21]But it is a storm nonetheless, and we'll keep watching it here throughout this newscast. This cluster of storms will mostly be lifting off to the north and east. The back edge is starting to move more though from west to east, and that's going to try to move into deeper parts of the hill country later on tonight. There's also some rain around the Del Rio area that's trying to lift north and east and blossom into more than it is now. So, we think our rain and storm coverage will start to go up after midnight. So, here's 10:00 p.m.

[00:01:49]This particular computer model picking up on that Mason County storm drifting off to the north and east. And then we get past midnight, and we see a higher chance of a cluster of storms. Strong, yes, but mostly it's the rain we're concerned about because a lot of us have had a decent amount of rain here over the last 24 hours and this rain's going to be falling on increasingly saturated soil. Moving from the hill country in the early hours of Thursday morning into the metro in the pre-dawn to near dawn hours here of your Thursday and then the storms gradually weakening as they head into our eastern counties and then pulling away. There'll be a drier period late morning, early afternoon before a few more storms bubble up during the second half the day. I think rain chances in the afternoon and evening will be closer to 20 to 30% so your highest rain chances tomorrow will come in the morning but a few lingering storms may hang on into Thursday night.

[00:02:45]Friday looks drier than tomorrow. 60% of us seeing rain and storms here overnight and tomorrow.

[00:02:52]Highs of 82. You can see how those rain chances peak in the early morning to mid-morning and then drop off and then try to bubble back up again as we head into the afternoon. There is a localized flash flooding threat here for the daylight hours of Thursday. It's a two out of four risk here from the metro east mostly for that morning round of storms. 1/4 inch to an inch of new rain tonight through Thursday from the metro into the hill country. We could get some isolated amounts up to about 2 inches though. It's not going to take as much rain to cause us flash flooding now as it did before we started to get in this wet period. Less rain expected in our eastern counties. Lower rain chances Friday, chances way up though for Saturday. That could be our next day of concern for flash flooding with scattered showers and storms Sunday.

[00:03:40]Memorial Day's rain chances are lower at 30% then they start to increase again as we head toward the middle of next week.