Weather looks good for Main St. festival Saturday; Sunday, keep an eye on the sky

If you’re yearning to get outdoors this weekend, Saturday is your best bet.

Although there’s a slight chance of scattered showers on Saturday, a storm system heavy with rain will arrive Sunday and continue into Monday, according to meteorologists with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.

Rainfall totals in the Fort Worth area are expected to be between 3 and 5 inches, but it depends on where the front settles.

“Right now, we think that’s going to be south of the Metroplex,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Ted Ryan.

“Somewhere in Texas is going to get a lot of rain,” Ryan said. “It’s just hard to say where. Somewhere in a triangle between DFW, San Antonio and Houston, will probably see over 10 inches. The best bet right now is Central Texas.”

‘We’ll be watching’

If the rainfall stays in the 3- to 5-inch range, North Texas shouldn’t see major flooding. But both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Fort Worth District and Tarrant Regional Water District will be watching the situation closely.

Most lakes in North Texas are full, which is quite a contrast to this time last year, when a prolonged drought had strained water levels.

“If you look overall, the system is ready,” said Clay Church, a corps spokesman.

Church said that Lake Grapevine and Lake Lewsiville are already holding water into their flood pool and that water will continue to be released from those lakes until the rains arrive.

“We’ll be watching the inflows in Denton Creek below the Grapevine dam,” Church said. “We’ll be watching Denton Creek fairly closely.”

David Marshall, TRWD’s director of engineering and operations support, said higher rainfall totals could cause flooding problems in their lakes. TRWD’s reservoirs include Lake Bridgeport and Eagle Mountain on the West Fork of the Trinity River and Cedar Creek and Richland-Chambers in East Texas.

“If we get over 5 inches, this will be a major flood and some structures may be damaged,” Marshall said. “It really depends upon how fast it falls and the total quantity. The models all show heavy rain, but the duration varies for the West Fork and the highest energy will be south of us.”

‘Definitely a wet pattern’

For most of Saturday, the weather should be good for getting outdoors. Sunday will be a different story.

“We won’t really know until Sunday how it’s setting up,” Ryan said. “Sunday morning might be OK but will probably see heavy rain moving in on Sunday afternoon.”

At the Main St. Fort Worth Arts Festival in downtown, plans are in place if inclement weather arrives, said spokeswoman Claire Bloxom Armstrong.

“We always strive to stay open, but our No. 1 priority is to keep our patrons and vendors safe,” Armstrong said.

If there is lightning or severe weather, the festival would shut down. If it is just rain, the festival will try to stay open.

For those headed to the festival on Sunday, Armstrong said “be smart and check the weather.”

Rain chances will stick around for most of next week but forecasters don’t anticipate another round heavy rainfall.

“It is definitely a wet pattern,” Ryan said. “It reminds of us what we saw last spring. But that occurred in May and June. We don’t quite see that severe weather potential right now like we saw last spring.”

This story was originally published April 15, 2016 at 1:46 PM with the headline "Weather looks good for Main St. festival Saturday; Sunday, keep an eye on the sky."