CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Upper-level high pressure over the Central Plains and Mid-Mississippi Valley remains strong enough to keep South Texas hot and dry, but its position will allow the tropics to bring significant rain chances to the Coastal Bend. Expect afternoon temperatures from the upper 90s to around 100 through Sunday, with maximum heat indices of between 114 and 118 degrees. By Tuesday and Wednesday, increasing clouds and Gulf moisture will hold daytime temperatures to the middle 90s, or near normal. The heat returns the second half of the week. Overnights will hold in the upper 70s. Expect breezy onshore flow gusting to around 20 mph, generally out of the east and east-southeast, through the weekend and into early next week.
The big news is a good chance for beneficial rainfall with a landfalling tropical disturbance expected early next week. This system will begin to push showers into South Texas by late Monday and bring widespread rain and thunderstorms, especially late Tuesday and Tuesday night. Scattered showers should linger into Wednesday, with stray showers again on Thursday. There is a 30 percent chance of this disturbance becoming a tropical depression or tropical storm.
Elsewhere in the tropics, two other disturbances in the Atlantic Basin have medium to high chances of becoming tropical depressions or tropical storms this weekend, but neither is expected to affect land areas. In the Eastern Pacific, Hurricane Hilary has become a dangerous Category 4 storm and is still intensifying. The storm is moving up the western Mexican coast and will weaken before impacting Southern California, western Arizona and southern Nevada early next week as it brings heavy rainfall and flash flooding.