AUSTIN, Texas — Western Texas's dry stretch ends tonight, and what replaces it is the wettest forecast the region has seen this season: moisture streaming north from the remnants of Tropical Storm Vance, combined with Gulf moisture, is expected to bring widespread rain, embedded thunderstorms and scattered flash flooding across West and Central Texas on Thursday, October 29, through Friday morning, October 30, according to the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center (WPC) and the Wednesday, October 28 Texas Weather Roundup from Texas Storm Chasers. This is a forecast, not an event that has happened yet — no flooding from this system had been reported as of Wednesday afternoon — but the ingredients, the rainfall numbers and the named risk areas are specific enough that drivers, especially truck drivers crossing West Texas, should plan around them now.
Source: Texas Storm Chasers — Texas Weather Roundup, Oct. 28, 2026
The WPC set the tone in its Tuesday outlook, quoted in national coverage: “Tropical moisture from the remnants of T.S. Vance will enter Southwest Texas Thursday into Friday and bring the potential for locally heavy rainfall and scattered flash flooding potential.” A second storm system then moves into the West Coast and Southwest toward the end of the week with further showers and thunderstorms, the WPC said — meaning Texas is the first stop of a broader western U.S. wet pattern, not the whole of it.
Where the flood risk sits: Big Bend to the Permian Basin to the Hill Country
The scattered flash-flooding risk for Thursday and Thursday night covers a wide arc of western Texas: the Big Bend, the Permian Basin (Midland–Odessa), the Edwards Plateau, the Stockton Plateau, the western Hill Country and the Concho Valley (San Angelo area). Texas Storm Chasers, working from the WPC outlooks, reports the Weather Prediction Center may upgrade part of that area to a Level 3 of 4 excessive-rainfall risk — a 'moderate' risk, one step below the highest category — which, if it happens, would signal forecasters expect more than scattered trouble. The National Weather Service office in San Angelo had already flagged the setup on Monday: “Chances are increasing for our area to have a significant rain event Thursday into Friday,” its forecast discussion said, expecting scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms to develop Thursday afternoon and continue into Thursday night, with heavy rainfall possible in short periods and a risk of localized and flash flooding.
The rainfall arithmetic is what makes this dangerous rather than merely wet. Rain rates of half an inch to an inch per hour could push some storm totals over 4 inches. The five-day forecast carries 2 to 4 inches, locally over 5, for the northern Edwards Plateau, the Stockton Plateau, the Concho Valley and the Permian Basin, and 1 to 3 inches for the rest of West Texas and Northwest Texas. In dry West Texas terrain — hard, rocky ground, dry creek beds and low-water crossings that fill in minutes — those totals arrive as runoff, not soaking. Forecasters expect rising creeks, streams and rivers and flooded roads, and repeat the region's standing rule: turn around, don't drown.
How the storm is built: a dead Pacific storm's moisture meets the Gulf
Vance itself will never reach Texas. Early Monday the storm was spinning about 260 miles south/southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, in the East Pacific, already weakening. What travels is its moisture: the WPC's excessive-rainfall discussion describes mid-to-upper-level moisture sourced from the East Pacific combining with a strong southeasterly low-level jet pulling moisture out of the Gulf of Mexico — two taps filling the same atmosphere over Texas at the same time. “The environmental ingredients in place will support an organized heavy rainfall event,” the WPC added. FOX Weather was telling the same story to a national audience on Wednesday: heavy rain and flash flooding starting Thursday, fuelled by Vance's tropical moisture, after a mild, dry stretch in Texas.
Source: FOX Weather — 'Tropical Storm Vance fuels flood threat in Texas', Oct. 28, 2026
The corridor view: I-10, I-20 and Friday's I-35 flood risk
For the trucking corridors that Punjabi owner-operators and fleet drivers run across Texas, the timing splits in two. Thursday's main event is the west: Interstate 10 across the Big Bend and Stockton Plateau country toward El Paso, Interstate 20 through the Permian Basin (Midland–Odessa), and the US highways crossing the Edwards Plateau and Concho Valley, where low-water crossings flood first and where Thursday also brings widespread rain with embedded storms, small hail and gusty winds at times. Friday, the flood risk shifts east onto the state's biggest north–south artery: a Level 1 flood risk runs along Interstate 35 and US-75 up to Sherman on Friday, and along I-35 from San Antonio through Austin and Waco forecasters expect 0.1 to 0.5 inches for most places — modest totals, but falling on a corridor where even brief downpours snarl traffic. Dallas tonight bottoms out near 68°F, with upper 70s to low 80s Thursday before the wet Friday. Houston stays comparatively light: a low of 66 tonight and 0.1 to 0.75 inches over the next five days.
National Weather Service guidance, repeated in coverage of this system: never drive into water of unknown depth — most flash-flood deaths happen in vehicles; stay away from stream beds, drainage ditches and culverts during heavy rain; move to higher ground if flooding threatens; and be especially cautious at night, when flood dangers are harder to see. Texas Storm Chasers' Thursday summary is blunter: “Expect rising creeks, streams and rivers and flooded roads. Turn around, don't drown.”
Halloween, and the bigger system behind this one
The pattern does not clear for the weekend. Scattered showers and a few storms are possible across the eastern half of Texas on Saturday — Halloween — and forecasters note the practical point for families: trick-or-treating in rain is fine, lightning is not; when thunder roars, go indoors. Behind this system, a larger upper-level storm arrives Monday through Wednesday of next week with a line of storms and a cold front, and some of those storms could be strong — the possible return of Texas's fall severe-weather season. Temperatures tell the same change-of-season story in the west: Friday's highs drop into the low 60s in the Panhandle and South Plains and the upper 60s in the Permian Basin, after days of 80s and low 90s in South Texas.
What happens next
Watch three decision points. First, the WPC's next excessive-rainfall outlook: whether part of West Texas is in fact upgraded to Level 3 of 4 will show how confident federal forecasters have become overnight. Second, local National Weather Service offices — San Angelo, Midland, El Paso, Austin/San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth — will convert the outlook into flash flood watches and, if rain materialises as forecast, warnings naming specific counties and roads; those products, not the outlook, are what close low-water crossings. Third, Thursday afternoon itself: the storms are expected to develop in the afternoon and run through the night, which is the highest-risk window for drivers crossing the Big Bend, the Plateau and the Permian Basin after dark. Awaaz Punjab will treat any actual flooding, road closures or rescues from this system as separate news when — and only if — officials report them.