Houston’s weather: Hot for a few more days, then rainy, and then we cool off

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In brief: Houston faces a couple of more days of late summer weather before a significant pattern change brings us a soggy weekend. After that we expect cooler conditions next week. Is it goodbye 90s?

Tuesday

Today will bring partly sunny skies into the region, with high temperatures in the low- to mid-90s as late September heat stubbornly holds on for a few more days. Winds will be from the southwest, gusting up to 15 or 20 mph during the afternoon hours. Areas near Matagorda Bay may see a few showers, but overall chances closer to Houston, and within the metro area, look to be low today—probably in the 10 to 20 percent range. Lows tonight will only drop into the upper 70s, and briefly.

As for the Astros and their playoffs against the Chicago White Sox, with games here locally on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I would not expect the roof to be open at all for the AL Wild Card Series.

Houston will be in the 90s for a few more days. (Weather Bell)

Wednesday

This day will be similar to Tuesday, although rain chances will be slightly higher, perhaps in the 20 to 30 percent range. Expect another muggy night.

Thursday

Skies should transition to become mostly cloudy on Thursday, with highs likely in the vicinity of 90 degrees. Rain chances will be improving, but as we discussed yesterday, the bulk of the rains during the mid-week period will be concentrated over central Texas, due to moisture from the remnants of Hurricane Polo. I’d say the region has about a 50 percent chance of rain on Thursday, but the likelihood of heavier rainfall will not pick up until Friday, or the weekend.

NOAA rain accumulation forecast for now through Sunday night. (Weather Bell)

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

This is when atmospheric moisture peaks, and each of these days will see a healthy rain chance in the 60 to 80 percent range. Overall accumulations this weekend will likely be in the vicinity of 1 to 4 inches across the metro area, but some areas may see higher isolated totals. For now we are not going to issue a flood scale warning, but Matt and I are watching things closely to see how things evolve. Mostly, we think this just will be a soggy weekend, with on-and-off showers putting a damper on some outdoor activities. Due to rains and cloud cover, expect highs in the mid- to upper-80s this weekend, with overnight lows in the 70s.

Next week

Highs next week should remain in the 80s, and our nighttime temperatures will depend on the extent to which a series of fronts make it into the region. Right now I think it’s possible that a weak front makes it in on Monday or Tuesday, with the possibility of a another front later in the week. The details on all of this are very much fuzzy at this point, however.

Heavy rains are inbound to Texas this week, with flooding likely in central parts of the state

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In brief: In today’s post we take a broader look at rains expected to move into Texas from the remains of a Pacific hurricane, and look ahead to cooler and wetter weather across the Houston region toward the end of this week.

Polo’s remains bring Texas rains

Hurricane Polo, a powerful storm in the Pacific Ocean, is about to make landfall over Baja Peninsula and then will move toward Texas over the next couple of days. There it will bring the potential for heavy rainfall. Houston, under less of a threat, will see rains later this week, which we’ll discuss below. But to start I wanted to highlight the threat from Polo to central Texas. The following is a snippet from our companion site, The Eyewall.

Copious amounts of moisture will surge into the Desert Southwest and eventually the Southern Plains and Texas from Hurricane Polo. The moisture from Polo and a slow or stalling cold front will probably focus repeating rounds of rain from Hill Country into North Texas. Those areas are already under a moderate risk (level 3/4) for flash flooding on Wednesday, and that will likely extend into Thursday as well.

Rain totals are likely to end up in the 4 to 8 inch range from south of San Antonio through Dallas and perhaps up toward Durant, OK through Friday. There is a chance that some areas see as much as 10 to 12 inches though, as we know Texas flood history is littered with these types of remnant Pacific hurricane events.

For now the more serious flooding concerns are likely to stay north and west of the Houston region. Texas folks in Hill Country and the Metroplex should monitor the next couple days of forecasts very closely and be prepared for disruptions on Wednesday and Thursday.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday

Locally, we don’t expect too much rainfall over the next few days. Rain chances through Wednesday will be on the lower end, probably 20 to 30 percent each day. Yes, there could be a few more clouds, and we certainly cannot rule out some thunderstorms, but any moisture related to Polo should remain well to our west. Highs each day will be in the low- to mid-90s with plenty of humidity. Nights will be muggy, in the upper 70s for the most part.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

This is the period when we expect improved rain chances across the Houston region as available moisture in the atmosphere surges upward. Unfortunately, I cannot give you a precisely detailed forecast for each day. However, rain chances should be 50 percent or above, with with partly to mostly cloudy skies. At this point Friday appears likely to have the best overall chance for rain, but this could shift over the next couple of days. In terms of overall accumulations, they will vary widely, but I expect most of the Houston region to pick up 1 to 4 inches of rainfall through Sunday. Again we’ll need to fine tune this forecast as we get closer.

High temperatures in Houston will moderate toward the end of this week. (Weather Bell)

In terms of daily temperatures, the cloud cover, rain, and a weak front should help pull highs down into the 80s on most days, with overnight lows in the mid-70s. So basically we’ll be at pretty seasonable levels for early October.

Next week

The rains should subside by Monday or Tuesday of next week, after which point something of a stronger front may arrive to possibly push nights into the 60s during the second half of the week. More on that in the coming days as we get more clarity on the situation.

Less humid in Houston today but still some heat to get through before a chance at a front next week

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In brief: A humidity front pushed through overnight, which will allow today to be significantly less humid and a couple degrees cooler. Humidity does return heading toward next week. While we are continuing to track a possible cold front later next week, confidence remains quite low in what it will actually do for the Houston area, other than lowering high temperatures a bit.

Just as a reminder, in case you missed it, we did make an important comment about hurricane season in Texas yesterday. We also have big app update news!

On to the forecast.

Today

Do you feel less humidity today? You should. A weak little boundary pushed in out of the north and east overnight, and with perhaps the exception of the extreme south and west parts of the area, it should be noticeably less humid today. Dewpoints are running about 5 to 10 degrees lower than this same time yesterday, meaning it feels that much more comfortable.

24 hour change in dewpoint shows the dewpoint value about 5 to 10 degrees lower than Thursday at the same time. (NOAA WPC)

It will remain hot for sure, so look for highs in the low-90s. Thankfully not as hot as yesterday’s 97 degrees. But that humidity will make it feel far less painful regardless.

Weekend

The humidity will slowly return this weekend, especially on Sunday. But otherwise, it’ll be more of the same: low 90s, maybe a few mid 90s, and sun and clouds. Rain chances, while not zero look to remain fairly low.

Early to mid next week

The late summer party continues early next week, with heat and a slight chance of a storm on Monday. By Tuesday, a cold front is going to work across part of the state. Our modeling confidence drops off beyond that.

Mid to late next week

Either the front is going to stall west of Houston keeping us warm and humid (80s) with thunderstorm chances. Or the front is going to slowly push through the Houston area bringing in less humid and pleasant weather with thunderstorm chances.

Let’s diagnose this a little further.

If you look at the European ensemble’s probability of highs near 90 degrees, you’d see Houston generally running at 70 to 90 percent odds most days through Tuesday. By Wednesday, those odds drop to 50 to 70 percent, Thursday’s odds are 20 to 50 percent, and Friday’s odds (shown here) drop to about 10 to 30 percent.

The odds of 90+ degree weather drop slowly next week as a cool front tries to hit the area. (StormVista)

This is the under the hood element of the models we will look at to say, “Alright, you’re forecasting a certain value, but what does it actually mean the probability of X, Y, or Z is?” In this case, we have a decent signal that the odds of 90 degree heat are dropping through later next week. So, we at least can say that with some confidence. Will we get the full-frontal experience (rated G for Great)? That remains TBD. At this time, models want to keep our precipitable water levels pretty elevated into next weekend, which I would say is a proxy for higher humidity.

Moisture values look above normal around the same time that 90 degree odds are falling, so “less hot but still humid” seems like a reasonable thought for late next week. (Tropical Tidbits)

So sitting here today, I would expect declining temps but maybe not necessarily declining humidity, at least not substantially so later next week. That said, eventually one of these things is going to break through and allow lows in the 60s or 50s. It’s a matter of when, not if, and there’s still at least some chance next week’s front is the one. I’m just not terribly confident in that today.

At the least, we should all see a bit of rain next week, although the highest totals will probably stay toward Hill Country and North Texas.

We will have more on all this Monday!

We’ve got an SCW app update for you. This year most of the magic is under the hood.

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This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Space City Weather app, which lets you read Eric and Matt’s blog posts, see current conditions for locations around the Houston area and get hourly and weekly forecasts. We’ve added a slew of features over the years – dark mode, a tablet layout, more cities and a way to report issues and offer feedback, among them.

For 2026, most of the updates are under the hood, but that doesn’t mean you won’t notice a big change. Thanks to developer Hussain Abbasi’s tireless efforts, the SCW app is fast. Like, crazy fast. As in, super-zippy!

Did I mention it’s fast? It really is!

We submitted it to the Apple App Store and Google Play store on Tuesday and it has been approved in both stores. We are rolling it out over the next week or so, so if you have app updates set automatically, it should eventually appear. If you manually update, you can start checking for it starting … now.

As always, the Apple version works on iPhones, iPads and Macs. The Android version works on phones (including Android foldables), tablets and, if you use Microsoft’s PhoneLink feature, you can display it on a Windows PC.

Here’s what’s new:

Although our focus for 2026 was laying the groundwork for big things in the future, there are a few tweaks we’ve made that address questions and issues we frequently hear from users of the app.

  • At least once a month, we hear from someone who wants us to know that we have misspelled the word “humidity” on the app as “houmidity.” As we have explained several times, this is a feature, not a bug. It’s a word Eric coined in a post back in 2023, and it describes the like-you’re-living-in-someone’s-mouth level of moisture that’s a signature of Houston summers. To make it clear this is not a typo, we’ve added a tongue-in-cheek “TM” to the Houmidity label on the app’s home page. If you don’t understand that it’s not an error after this, well, I’m not sure we can help you.
  • We also get occasional requests to add Bush Intercontinental Airport to the list of cities. The Houston item in the city picker drawer is actually that airport, because it’s the official weather station for the city. To make that clear, we’ve added a parenthetical (IAH) to the Houston listing.
  • We also get lots of requests to add various cities that aren’t currently in our city picker drawer, and this year we have added two: The Woodlands and Bay City (which in case you didn’t know, is not actually on a bay; it’s landlocked!). There are now 14 cities in the picker, and if you don’t see them all on a smaller screen, just scroll up. Yes, we know those may not be YOUR cities, but hold that thought…
  • Good news for Android users! We’ve added the ability to zoom in on images in the SCW posts, a feature that has been missing. You may now pinch-and-zoom with impunity!

  • OK, now it’s time for the cool stuff. Hussain, working closely with technical lead Lee Hutchinson, have built a new server-based foundation for the Space City Weather app. From the beginning, the app has gotten its data directly from the National Weather Service’s servers. That’s a lot of requests made to the government’s computers, and if they weren’t working properly, it could cause issues in our app. With this version, we have a back end that pulls in the NWS data once and stores it on servers we control. When you open the new version of the app, it will talk to our servers, which are more responsive than the NWS ones (no brag, just fact!). You should notice the difference immediately – the app feels much friskier! This also means we can make changes to certain parts of the app without going through the process of pushing new versions to the app stores.

    What kind of changes, you may ask?

  • Remember the addition of the those two cities I mentioned? Our new architecture allows us to add more cities – or change the ones we have there now – on the fly, without releasing a new app version. For now we’ll stick with the 14 locations we have, but we may make changes as weather events require. For example, if we know a hurricane is taking aim at Corpus Christi, we might add that location temporarily. We will use this new capability judiciously, but stay tuned.

  • This new foundation will also let us allow users to customize the app by picking and choosing from a longer list of area cities, though that will require more work next year. It may also let us add your current location as an option, but that means we’ll need to track where you are. We’ve mentioned this as a possibility before, and we emphasize that, if added, it will be opt-in. If you want to share your current location, that’s something you’ll have to turn on. It will be off by default – and at the moment, this possible feature is an aspiration, not a promise.

Also likely coming next year: A design refresh. Right now Hussain builds the app so it looks the same on both Apple and Android devices. If all goes well, we will move to designs that are native to each platform. That means those who use the app on iPhones, iPads and Macs will see it using Apple’s Liquid Glass design; Android users will see their version in Material 3. We have used the same design since the app debuted in 2021; it’s time for a glow-up!

The app continues to be free, and ad-free, thanks to our sponsor, Reliant. And as always, we don’t track you or gather data from you.

We’ve been testing the new version for a while and it seems pretty solid. But because it is a new version, and there’s been an extensive reworking of the app’s underlying systems, there may be a bug or two. If you find an issue, you can report it by going to the Settings (3-line menu next to the home screen city name, then tap the gear icon in the picker drawer) and choosing Send Feedback.

Enter as much detail as you can about the problem, and hit the Send button. This will automatically dispatch a log of what’s happening inside the app, which is very helpful for troubleshooting.

If crashes prevent you from getting to this menu option, first make sure you have the latest version of the app, then send us an email with as much info as you can, including the kind of phone and model; the version of the operating system you’re using; and a detailed description of what’s happening. (If you use the Send Feedback feature, the details about your phone and operating system are automatically included.)

We hope you like the improvements this year, and as always, we appreciate your downloading and using the app, and being a part of the SCW family!