Sorting out Space City Weather e-mails in 2026

In brief: Did you sign up for the Space City Weather e-mail forecasts, but stopped receiving them? Try signing up again, and also check your spam filters! If you think you should be receiving email and you’re not, we’ve got some troubleshooting steps to follow and an address where you can report problems if the troubleshooting doesn’t help.

We’re happy to be able to offer Space City Weather in your inbox as a free service, and we know from direct feedback that thousands of folks in and around the Houston area enjoy waking up to the SCW weekday forecast (at least when that forecast portends fair weather!).

As one of the oldest still-functional components of the modern Internet, e-mail is an ornery technology. Its co-opting by spammers and scammers has led to an ever-evolving series of standards and safeguards that e-mail senders must utilize in order for their e-mails to be delivered successfully. Sending e-mail in bulk—which we definitely do, to 20,000+ subscribers every weekday, and sometimes three, four, or even five times a day during major weather events!—requires strict compliance with a whole bunch of different rules. There are also legal requirements about how unsubscribing should be handled and how e-mail addresses should be stored, and failing to follow the letter of the law here can mean facing penalties under things like CCPA, GDPR, and other acts emerging from the constantly shifting legislative landscape.

Doing e-mail at scale properly, without cutting corners like spammers tend to do, can be very expensive—potentially more than a thousand dollars per month at SCW’s current volume of e-mail. Fortunately for us, we’re able to lean on a service offered by WordPress as part of their Jetpack tool, called “Jetpack Newsletter.” SCW has been using the Jetpack Newsletter service since around 2017 to send millions of subscriber e-mails at a very reasonable cost to us. Jetpack Newsletter also handles the compliance aspect of things, freeing us up to focus on the weather.

Support speaks

However, we receive a small but regular trickle of messages through our “contact us” form from at least one or two folks every week indicating that they at one point signed up for SCW daily e-mails, but stopped receiving them. This has triggered a review on our end of how we’re using the Jetpack e-mail service, and we’ve been discussing the matter with the WordPress/Jetpack support crew.

After some digging, the Jetpack team is confident that the service is working properly and that they’re not unsubscribing anyone unless there are legitimate deliverability problems. I’ll paste in a bit from what they told us in our latest exchange:

At this time, there isn’t a hard limit on the total number of subscribers who can receive your Jetpack Newsletter. While there are limits on manual subscriber imports, subscriptions made directly through your site are not capped, and we don’t offer paid tiers to increase email capacity.
 
I took a look at your recent activity and can see that your latest newsletter was sent successfully to the majority of your subscribers and opened by over 22,000 recipients. You can confirm this on your end by visiting Stats → Subscribers in your WP Admin.
 
In most cases where readers stop receiving email notifications, it’s due to their email address being blocked from sending. This can happen for a number of reasons, such as their WordPress.com email notifications being paused, an invalid or outdated email address, marking previous emails as spam, repeated email bounces, or other deliverability-related issues.

Additionally, Jetpack support suggested a few ways (some of which we were previously unaware!) to monitor newsletter sign-ups and newsletter e-mail delivery status from our end, without us needing to open more support tickets.

Next steps for folks still having problems

Armed with these new tools, we’d like to approach the issue systematically. Here’s how.

First off, if you’ve not subscribed to get SCW in your inbox every time Eric and Matt make a post, now’s a great time to do so! You can use the sign-up link in the sidebar on every page, and I’ve also included the same sign-up form right below this paragraph if you’d prefer not to have to hunt for it:

Join 24.5K other subscribers

Second, if you’ve subscribed in the past and then stopped receiving e-mails, we’ve got a short list of steps to follow:

  • Go ahead and sign up again, using the sidebar form or the form above, to make doubly sure your address is on the newsletter list. (If you’re unsure if you’ve already signed up in the past, signing up again won’t hurt anything or cause you to get duplicate e-mails, so no worries there.)

    You should immediately see a pop-up dialog box telling you that a confirmation link is on the way. After clicking “Got it” on the pop-up, you should then receive an e-mail at the address you used to subscribe, asking you to confirm your subscription. This “double opt-in” step is mandatory and ensures you weren’t signed up by mistake, and that the e-mail address being provided is valid. You must confirm your address in order to begin receiving SCW e-mails.
Image showing the subscriber pop-up dialog
Image showing the subscriber confirmation email
The initial pop-up dialog at left, and the subscription confirmation e-mail at right. If you don’t confirm both of these, you won’t get our e-mails.
  • Next, wait a day. Signing up won’t cause any previous e-mails to be delivered, so you’ll need to hang tight until Eric or Matt make their next forecast post. If you’re still not seeing any e-mails after the next day’s SCW post, it’s time to dig a little deeper.
  • Check your subscription status on WordPress.com. You can use this link right here to look at the status of all of your WordPress-managed subscriptions, including SCW. If everything’s working, your page should look something like the image below, showing your subscription status:
Image showing Jetpack e-mail subscriptions
Subscription status page on WordPress.com. The trash icon allows you to unsubscribe, and the three dots at the end of the row contain options to adjust e-mail frequency if desired.
  • Check your spam folder. Because we’re sending e-mail in large quantities, the headers in our e-mails are required to contain metadata explaining that they are bulk-sent newsletters, and how to unsubscribe from them. Some e-mail system spam filters interpret those bulk headers as a sign that the message is probably garbage and that you probably don’t want to see it, and send the messages to your spam folder instead of your inbox. If this is happening to you, explicitly marking one of the e-mails as “not spam” should correct this problem and ensure future messages make it to your inbox.
  • Check your “newsletter” e-mail category. Most web-based e-mail providers by default will display newsletters, promotional e-mails, social notifications, and other bulk or transactional e-mails in a separate (sometimes hidden) set of “category” folders unless you tell them to do otherwise. Gmail’s categories can be configured using these instructions, whereas Microsoft O365/Outlook users can check their category configurations here.
  • Check your e-mail rules and filters for anything that might be routing e-mails away from your inbox. How to do this varies by e-mail provider and even by the e-mail program you’re using. Gmail’s instructions are here; Microsoft’s are here.

If all else fails…

If you’ve verified that you’re signed up and your subscription status looks good, and you’ve checked your spam folder and your filters and your category lists and you’re certain everything is set properly, and after all that you’ve still not received any forecast e-mails, then we definitely want to hear from you so that we can investigate with our new tools!

For folks in this unfortunate situation, please end us a note at [email protected] and let us know. It is vital that you include in your note the e-mail address with which you’ve attempted to subscribe! Without that, we’ve got nothing to search for in the logs and we won’t be able to help.

Please also understand that we have a technical team of precisely one person—me!—and I might not be able to respond the same day. But even if it takes a bit of time to get back to you, please know that we’re looking at every report that comes in to see if there are any problems or issues we can fix on our end.

Thanks for choosing to be a Space City Weather reader. Stay warm out there!

Houston to warm up for a few days before another sharp cooldown this weekend

In brief: After our coldest weather in nearly a year this morning, the region will thaw out and warm up today with plenty of sunshine. We will then have a few milder days before another strong front arrives Thursday night. By Sunday morning we could see temperatures nearly as cold as this morning, although we have no wintry precipitation concerns with this round.

Houston is experiencing a very cold January morning out there just before sunrise. (Weather Bell)

Cold status

We are at the tail end of impacts from this past weekend’s Arctic front, but paradoxically we are also seeing the coldest temperatures of the event, ranging from 18 degrees in Conroe to the low- to mid-20s across much of the Houston region. We’ve waited this long for the coldest air because skies finally cleared last night, and winds died down to nearly zero. This created ideal conditions for cooling temperatures. However we also will see a fairly quick rebound in conditions today, with sunny skies leading to highs of around 50 degrees.

Tuesday

We are going to see calm winds all day, to go along with our sunny skies. Accordingly conditions will feel quite a bit warmer this afternoon. Lows tonight will drop to around freezing in the metro area, probably just at or above 32 degrees along and south of Interstate 10, and a degree or two below inland of the freeway. Regardless, after mid-morning today, the threat of a hard freeze will have passed for a few days.

Wednesday and Thursday

These will be warmer days. Wednesday should be mostly sunny, with highs in the upper 50s and light winds. Wednesday night will be cold, in the 30s, but likely above freezing. Thursday will see highs all the way in the low- to mid-60s, but with building cloud cover. However by Thursday evening or early Friday another strong front will surge into the area. You’ll notice this with gusty northerly winds. Fortunately this looks like a dry frontal passage, so we don’t have many concerns about a wintry mix. Even if there are a few passing showers, temperatures will be warm enough to preclude a freezing mix. Lows on Thursday night will drop to around 40 degrees.

Low temperatures on Sunday morning could be quite similar to what Houston is experiencing this morning. (Weather Bell)

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

The weekend looks mostly sunny and cold. Highs on Friday will probably reach about 50 degrees, but Saturday will be colder, perhaps only in the low 40s as cold air continues to advect into the area. Sunday may be slightly warmer. So what about nighttime temperatures? Friday and Saturday night look to be the coldest. There’s the potential for a hard freeze on Saturday night, when we once again see ideal cooling conditions. Right now I would predict lows between 25 and 30 degrees in urban Houston, with slightly cooler conditions for outlying areas. But we will see.

Next week

Monday should also be clear and chilly, but after this a warmer and wetter pattern will take hold. I expect highs in the 60s next week, with a healthy chance of rain showers from later on Tuesday through Thursday. Details are to be determined, but additional rain to help with the region’s drought would not be unwelcome.

No power issues, a few ice concerns, but mostly it’s just really cold in Houston

In brief: As we experience the coldest weather of this winter outbreak, Houston’s coming through without any significant power issues. Roads, too, are mostly passable with a little care in the metro area. We have one more cold night before a modest warmup ensues. And what of that second Arctic front next weekend?

Pre-sunrise temperatures on Monday are very cold across Texas. (Weather Bell)

Winter storm status

As we noted yesterday, Houston never received the amount of freezing rain necessary to present problems for power lines and other means of distributing electricity. And based on ERCOT’s latest projections for this morning, there should be no electricity supply crunch. Therefore we have no meaningful concerns about power during the current cold snap.

Roads, too, are mostly fine. There have been some reports of ice on roadways where standing water froze over night. Be sure to check Houston Transtar’s list of icy roadways before heading out this morning. However if you take a little time, and a little extra care, you should be able to get most locations in the metro area this morning. Road conditions rapidly worsen to the north of Houston, such as north of Conroe, and to the northwest, near Hempstead, on Highway 290. More information can be found on Drive Texas.

As for temperatures, lows have fallen generally into the mid-20s this morning in Houston and surrounding areas. Even Galveston Island has dropped into the upper 20s. Overcast skies have helped prevent colder temperatures. I expect lows to reach similar levels tonight, with temperatures perhaps a few degrees warmer or cooler.

High temperatures today will not be very high. (Weather Bell)

Monday

Job number one this morning is to stay warm. Winds are still frisky, from the north at 10 to 15 mph, and that is making a very cold morning worse. Wind chill temperatures are in the low teens out there. We’ll be slow to warm up this morning, but by this afternoon with clearing skies we should see highs reach into the mid- to upper-30s for most locations. For a few hours at least. The combination of lighter winds and clearing skies will lead to ideal cooling conditions tonight. Expect lows similar to what we’re experiencing this morning, give or take.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday

Houston will slowly emerge from the ice box this week with highs on Tuesday in the upper 40s, and reaching the mid- to upper-50s by Thursday. A light freeze will be possible on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights for central and further inland parts of the area. Skies should be mostly sunny.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

Another strong cold front is in the cards for this weekend, likely arriving on Friday. This may bring some precipitation with it. Although we cannot rule out some of this rain turning into snow or sleet, it looks like the colder air will arrive after the precipitation ends. We’ll be watching things closely, all the same. Friday will probably see highs in the 50s, but the weekend looks cold with high temperatures in the 40s. What of lows? It’s a good question, and I could see them falling anywhere in the 25 to 35 degree range for Houston. So worst case, probably about what we’re experiencing this morning. But there’s still some wiggle room, so I want to wait for more clarity before making bold predictions.

Stay warm out there, and thanks to everyone who is getting out and about this morning to make Houston’s fair society—from grocery stores and airports to hospitals and law enforcement—function despite the inclement weather.

Houston dodges a bullet with ice storm, but two very cold nights remain

In brief: So the great ice-apocalypse forecast by some did not happen in Houston. We explain why not, and why most Houston roads are good to go. Also, we take a peek at lows tonight and Monday night.

So what happened?

If you’ve been carefully reading Space City Weather for the past week—and you have, haven’t you?—we’ve talked ad nauseum about the uncertainty surrounding air temperatures on Sunday morning, and what that would mean for freezing rain and ice accumulations. Back on Thursday, for example, I outlined a couple of scenarios that were possible; a faster freeze and a slower freeze. In the end we got lucky, and the “slower freeze” happened.

Surface temperatures at 7 am CT on Sunday. (Weather Bell)

Basically, temperatures during the key moments of precipitation this morning across most of the Houston area remained in the 32 to 35 degree range. (The map above shows air temperatures at 7 am CT). We actually saw surface temperatures warm very slightly when the stronger showers moved through this morning as this heavier precipitation dragged some of the warmer air higher in the atmosphere down to the surface. These couple of degrees helped ensure that a lot of precipitation feel in Houston as cold rain or sleet. Moreover, because surfaces were still well above freezing (it’s been warm for the last week) there was not enough time for these surfaces to cool down to support sticking ice.

We received about 0.25 to 1 inch of precipitation this morning. Had that been snow, we would have had inches of the white stuff laying around. Had it been freezing rain, our roads would be an icy nightmare. Because it was what it was, our roads have had some time to dry out before temperatures plunge tonight.

Are there issues with driving?

Things are fine for the most part out there in metro Houston. As of noon on Sunday there are just about a dozen icy locations on area freeways, and these are largely where you would expect them: to the west, northwest, and north of Houston, mostly on overpasses. But by and large the rain has evaporated from streets before it could freeze, and a lot of area roads are clear. Locations that are dry now will be fine from now on.

There are still some locations with patchy ice, and areas with standing water will freeze tonight. So I’m not saying you should drive without caution. But getting around Houston should be fine if you drive with care tonight and on Monday.

A snapshot of the Drive Texas dashboard at noon CT on Sunday.

But boy oh boy, when you get outside of Houston conditions deteriorate pretty quickly. If you browse over to Drive Texas there are hundreds of reported incidences of ice and snow on Texas highways. So if you need to get from Houston north to Dallas, or west to Austin and San Antonio, travel is not recommended. (I-10 east into Louisiana is fine). Neither Austin nor Dallas will be comfortably above freezing until Tuesday, but road conditions may improve before then due to treatment.

So how about power issues?

Houston has dodged the first of two potential bullets when it comes to electricity. Because we never recorded much in the way of freezing rain this morning, ice never accumulated on tree limbs and power lines. Therefore, CenterPoint and other utilities never had distribution issues.

The second bullet is power generation, especially tonight into Monday morning when the state faces some of its coldest weather. If you peruse supply and demand projections from ERCOT, a possible crunch remains from 6 am to 10 am on Monday morning. So far ERCOT has not issued a call to conserve energy usage, so my sense is that things will be more or less OK on Monday morning from a power generation standpoint. But we’ll keep a close eye on things, and update Space City Weather if this projection changes.

Sunday and Monday nights

Our main remaining concern with this winter system is temperatures tonight and on Monday night, when the coldest air mass will be in place. Temperatures have trended slightly warmer of late, and I believe this is due in part to a lack of ice on the ground in and near Houston. This would have lead to more efficient cooling of air near the surface. I expect lows of generally 20 to 28 degrees in Houston on both nights, with slightly cooler temperatures possible north and west of the city. Below is a forecast for lows on Tuesday morning, which now should be the coldest of the period due to clear skies and light winds.

Forecast low temperatures for Tuesday morning. (Weather Bell)

Our next update will be posted around 7 am CT on Monday morning.