Texoma forecast: Rain chances for Friday football and Saturday, partly sunny Sunday

The National Weather Service's Oct. 2 forecast for Gainesville carried rain chances into Cooke County's Friday night football and Saturday plans. It then called for a partly sunny Sunday and sunny days early next week.

The agency's forecast for Gainesville Municipal Airport called for a cloudy Saturday with a high in the low 70s and a 60 percent chance of rain. Sunday was expected to turn partly sunny and warm into the low 80s.

Friday evening looked mild for a ballgame. An hourly forecast issued at 11:51 a.m. put Gainesville near 72 degrees at 7 p.m. and in the upper 60s by 10 p.m. The sky was less settled. Each hour in that stretch carried a rain chance of roughly 30 to 45 percent under heavy cloud, and the forecast held a slight chance of thunderstorms.

After the weekend, the airport forecast turned sunny. It called for highs in the low 80s on Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 5 and 6, with overnight lows in the mid-50s.

The weather service's Fort Worth office tied the unsettled weather to a slow-moving front across North and Central Texas. Its Oct. 2 afternoon forecast discussion put most of the showers near and west of Interstate 35. Forecasters expected the long unsettled spell to end as an upper-level trough weakened and pulled away.

A thunderstorm would bring the University Interscholastic League's lightning guidance into play. Under that guidance, outdoor activity may not resume until at least 30 minutes after the last lightning or thunder, and each new strike or rumble resets the clock. For schools that use lightning-detection technology, the UIL recommends stopping play when lightning is detected within 10 miles.

Forecasts for nearby towns read much the same. The Fort Worth discussion gave Denton and McKinney Saturday highs a few degrees warmer than Gainesville's, with rain chances of 50 percent or more. A day earlier, the agency's Sherman forecast called rain likely Friday night and Saturday. It followed with a partly sunny Sunday in the upper 70s and a slight chance of showers.

The highs forecast for early next week would run a few degrees above a normal October afternoon at Wichita Falls. The weather service's 1991–2020 normals put the average high there for the month in the upper 70s and the average low in the low 50s. Statewide, NOAA's 2022 Texas climate summary draws on observations through 2020. It reports almost 1.5 degrees of warming since the start of the 20th century and projects more warming and more extreme heat events.

Last October ran hot and dry at Wichita Falls, according to the same weather service report. The month averaged more than 5 degrees above normal, and nine days reached 90 or higher. Rain came to about 1.3 inches, less than half the usual total.