Follow our cold front:

HOUSTON – We’re tracking an approaching cold front that will bring showers and thunderstorms across the state, with temperatures already getting cooler in the Panhandle. If you’re traveling through the state, you can track radar and temperatures here:

Forecast for Tuesday:

The cold front will finally bring the first chance of rain in a long time back into the forecast. As the front slowly advances into our region, we will experience more widespread storms this afternoon and on Wednesday. Highs will still be in the 30s until the rain starts.

On the trail of the tropics:

Tropical Storm Helene formed in the northwestern Caribbean Sea at 10 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Helene is expected to strengthen rapidly once it forms and moves into the open, very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It is currently forecast to become a major Category 3 hurricane, making landfall near Apalachicola or along the Big Bend curve down to Cedar Key on Thursday afternoon.

Both this week’s cold front and the strong low (or trough in the jet stream) that will pull it across the US will help keep the storm away from Texas, and also provide a more concrete opportunity to direct the storm toward the FL Panhandle.

10-day forecast:

Stormy weather will return on Tuesday and Wednesday as the front passes through. Then we’ll get a nice little taste of autumn with highs between 27 and 15 degrees in the morning! It will quickly get warmer again by next weekend.