What the forecast actually says — NWS Area Forecast Discussions, decoded into plain English.
Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for El Paso, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.
Area Forecast Discussion · National Weather Service El Paso (EPZ) · issued Saturday, October 24 at 5:07 AM MDT.
Messages
Widespread showers and thunderstorms again this afternoon and evening. Best chances for areas east of the Rio Grande, including El Paso, Hudspeth, and Otero Counties. Storms will be capable of large hail, damaging winds, and localized flash flooding.
Storm chances shift further east Sunday and Monday, limited mostly to Hudspeth and Otero Counties. A brief window of drier weather expected midweek before rain chances return Thursday into next weekend.
Typical late-October temperatures, with lowland highs in the lower to mid 70s.
Discussion
Deep, layered moisture continues over the forecast area from the RG Valley east with PWs of around an inch. This could be from another upper trough that rotated around the upper low over SoCal. Our round of severe weather seemed to align with the back edge of this layered moisture, with convection now weakened considerably and mostly over Otero County.
Saturday and Sunday. another upper trough now over western Arizona will rotate eastward Saturday, reaching the RG Valley mid afternoon. This looks to be the convective initiator, limiting most of the thunderstorms to the valley east starting mid afternoon. MUCAPES approach 1000 J/kg in the east Saturday, and much like today, decent speed shear with little directional shear. Thus, some severe storms are possible again on Saturday in the east. Same story mostly on Sunday, though as the upper low lifts out over Utah and the main trough from the low moves into New Mexico, the convective focus may shift even a bit further east. The environment still keeps MUCAPES of around 500-1000 J/kg, but with mid level winds turning more southwest, some directional shear is introduced back into the area. Hail likely to be the biggest threat again; some flooding is possible but lower PWs and the continued rapid movement of the storms should keep this threat lower.
Monday through Wednesday. drier air at upper levels moves in as upper flow turns westerly. However mid level remains southerly Monday so slight chance of storms remains over Hudspeth/Otero Counties. Tuesday and Wednesday should remain dry.
Thursday and Friday. mid and upper level winds become a bit more south/southwest as a Pacific trough approaches the west coast. This will draw up modest amounts of moisture, so a slight chance of rain will also follow for both these days.
This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole El Paso discussion at /o/EPZ/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.