Eric Berger

In brief: In today’s post we discuss the very hot week ahead for Houston, but explain why this weekend should offer some slight relief. Could we actually see a little rain as well? Maybe. And we take a peek into the tropics, where the Atlantic is slowly waking up.

It’s been a hot one

High temperatures in Houston over the last four days have been sizzling: 100, 101, 103, and 101 degrees. We are going to continue to flirt with highs of 100 degrees, or just above, for most of this week as high pressure reigns supreme. Longtime residents of Houston will know that the period of late August often brings the most torrid weather to our region, and this year is delivering in spades.

However, we do have some hope on the horizon. No, I’m not talking about a bona fide cold front. It’s just too early to have any real hopes for that—check back in a couple of weeks on that score. However there is increasing evidence that high pressure will break down somewhat by Friday or so of this week, allowing for more seasonal high temperatures in the mid-90s and a decent chance of rain.

But it’s going to be scorching until then.

Monday

Today will bring more or less similar conditions to what we saw over the weekend, which means baking heat over the region pushing highs to 100 degrees or a little higher. (Coastal areas will remain cooler during the daytime, in the mid- to upper-90s). Skies will be sunny, with humid air. Nights will briefly fall into the upper 70s. Winds will be fairly calm in the morning, with gusts up to 20 mph from the south-southwest during the afternoon and early evening.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Conditions are more or less the same, but we might shave 1 or 2 degrees off of daily highs such that, by Thursday, most of Houston is in the upper 90s. Sunny skies and plenty of humidity remains.

Friday

Expect highs in the mid- to upper-90s on Friday with partly to mostly sunny skies. As high pressure breaks down we should see some (fairly weak) disturbances start to rotate through. This could bring a modest chance of rain into the region, something like 20 or 30 percent. It’s not much, but we’ve been so bone dry of late anything would be welcome.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend will bring fairly typical weather for late August, with highs generally in the mid-90s and a chance of afternoon showers along the sea breeze. If you’re planning on outdoor activities you can expect plenty of sunshine, but there will be the possibility of some brief, passing showers.

Next week

Summer is not over, of course, when we reach September. For most of next week, at this point, I expect highs in the mid- to upper-90s with some slight rain chances. So still very warm outside.

Atlantic tropics

Over at the Eyewall, Matt has a good summary of the Atlantic tropics. The area of most note is a wave emerging off of Africa today, which has a decent shot of development over the next week. Overall this is something we’re definitely going to watch given the time of year, but it’s not something we’re at all concerned about at this point.

In brief: In today’s post we put Houston’s ongoing heat wave into context, noting that our temperatures are very warm but should generally fall short of record highs. Also could we start to see a slight reprieve later next week?

Heat wave

There is no sugarcoating our weather for the next seven to 10 days. The remainder of August in Houston is going to be brutally hot, although our daily highs should fall a few degrees below record high temperatures (which range between 103 and 109 degrees for the last 10 days of August). Normal highs for this time of year are generally in the low- to mid-90s, so we’re going to be well above that.

In terms precipitation the default forecast is no rain for the remainder of the month. However, we are going to see some weak disturbances rotating through the region over the next week, so the daily rain chances are probably something on the order of 5 to 10 percent. This means that there will be a slight possibility of a few isolated showers and thunderstorms on some afternoons. Most of us, to be clear, will see nothing for at least the next week.

There is no conclusive end to this weather pattern. The European forecast model suggests the upper air pattern will shift enough about a week from now to bring us closer to normal temperatures for this time of year, so possibly a cooler overall pattern. But I want to see more data before I find this forecast persuasive. Typically when we get locked into this high pressure patterns they are difficult to break in late summer.

Thursday and Friday

Expect sunny skies, with high temperatures in Houston in the vicinity of 100 degrees. Only coastal areas will be a few degrees cooler, thanks to the slightly moderating influence of the Gulf. Nights will be warm and muggy, with lows in the upper 70s to 80 degrees. Rain chances, as noted above, are very low, but not quite zero.

Saturday and Sunday

The forecast remains the same, more or less, but daytime temperatures might actually be 1 or 2 degrees warmer.

Next week

Monday and Tuesday should see continued very, very warm weather. By mid-week, or later, we could start to see daytime highs come down into the upper-90s, and the possibly mid-90s by next weekend. But am I making any promises? No, I am not.

Atlantic tropics

The tropics remain dead quiet for now, but as Matt wrote on The Eyewall this morning, we are tracking a couple of tropical waves that should move off Africa in the coming days. One of them has a decent chance of developing. However, our overall concerns for the Gulf remain very, very low for the time being.

In brief: In today’s post we discuss new heat protocols for Texas schools, and explain why they’re a good thing. Speaking of heat, Houston is going to take things up a notch through the weekend.

New heat protocols for Texas schools

For those who don’t know, the University Interscholastic League, or UIL, set the ground rules for most athletic competitions in Texas elementary, middle, and high schools. Starting August 1 the UIL issued mandatory rules for the use of Wet Bulb Globe Temperatures to monitor environmental conditions and determine the level of outdoor physical activity that is appropriate. Previously, the guidelines were recommended.

Regular readers of Space City Weather will know that we have touted Wet Bulb Globe Temperatures often (most recently, in July). The name is clunky and the way such temperatures are calculated is not super easy: these temperatures take a lot of factors into account, including temperature, humidity, wind speed, Sun angle and cloud cover to determine the amount of heat stress. But WBGT temperatures are particularly helpful for determining whether outdoor exercise or work is safe.

A friend sent me this link at which some people were commenting on how the use of these temperatures proved that today’s kids are “soft,” and there is the usual “back in my day” feedback. Well, back in your day the average August temperature in Texas was 1 to 3 degrees cooler than it is today. Moreover, there seems to be a misunderstanding about the scale: 90 degrees on WGBT is considerably hotter than a 90 degree air temperature.

For what it’s worth, this decision doesn’t mean coaches can’t hold two-hour football practices, it just means they’ll need to do so a little later in the day. Anyway, this is a great move that protects our kids from dangerous heat exposure, and the UIL is to be commended for using the best available science to guide decision-making.

Wednesday through Friday

Our weather for the remainder of the work week will be sunny and hot. Most of the Houston region, for most of these days, will reach highs of around 100 degrees, give or take. Winds will be from the southwest at 5 to 10 mph, but we should see afternoon and early evening gusts up to 20 mph. Skies will be sunny, with rain chances near zero. Nights will be warm and sultry.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend will bring more of the same. The only change is a slight, and I do mean slight, chance of showers on Sunday. We’re talking 10 or 20 percent, at most, along the sea breeze.

Next week

Our forecast just doesn’t change much next week. We can expect hot and sunny conditions, with little respite. It is possible that temperatures start to moderate somewhat toward the second half of next week, but I’m making no promises. By the way, there was some social media discussion yesterday about temperatures getting down to 50 degrees in Houston at the end of August. Please ignore this as it is nonsense.

In brief: In today’s post we spend some time discussing the slow start to the Atlantic hurricane season, and how we are increasingly late into the game for the first hurricane to form. We also discuss Houston’s brief period of low humidity on Monday, and look ahead to a blazing hot week.

What’s happening in the Atlantic?

It’s really calm out there. Based on recent climatology, the first hurricane forms in the Atlantic basin (which includes the Caribbean and Gulf waters) on August 11, on average. We are now one week past that. Moreover the period of mid-August to mid-October, which we have now reached, is the busiest time for the Atlantic. But right now there are crickets. Can this quietude last?

First of all, it would be extremely unusual to not have any Atlantic hurricanes during a season. In the last 50 years, when forecasters have had satellites and other modern detection tools, no season has gone without a hurricane. The latest date for a hurricane formation in any of these seasons is September 11, which happened in 2002 and 2013. So we are almost certainly going to get some hurricanes this year, although I would not necessarily bet on it happening before September 11.

Right now the Atlantic is just hostile to hurricanes, especially with a rapidly strengthening El Niño. We saw two reasonably promising tropical waves last week, both of which the forecast models were at times excited about, vanish into wind shear and dust. In the next 10 days or so we are likely to see a couple of more tropical waves move off of Africa. It is possible that one of these will develop into a tropical depression toward the end of August. But all available evidence suggests these will remain far from not just the Gulf, but the Caribbean as well.

As always, we will keep watching.

Tuesday

There was a brief period on Monday afternoon, around 3 to 5 pm, when if you stepped outside it didn’t feel that much like Houston. Sure, it was hot, with temperatures in the upper 90s. But we saw enough mixing of some drier air aloft to bring humidity down into the 20s (the map below shows approximate relative humidity at 4:30 pm). It didn’t last long as this drier air was soon swamped by a humid flow off the Gulf, but it was briefly noticeable. I think something similar will happen today and Wednesday, although the effect probably won’t be quite so prominent.

Alas that’s probably the most interesting part of the forecast. Highs today will be in the upper 90s for most of the region, away from the coast, with sunny skies. Winds will be light, perhaps gusting to 10 or 15 mph during the afternoon hours. Lows tonight will only fall to around 80 degrees.

Wednesday through Friday

And not much changes for the remainder of the work week: Inland highs will be in the upper 90s to 100 degrees, with warm and sultry nights. Rain chances are near zero.

Saturday and Sunday

A front will die to the north of Houston, and this will introduce some slight (maybe 10 or 20 percent, at best) rain chances across the region over the weekend. But mostly we expect sunny and hot weather to persist.

Next week

Does anything change next week? Probably not. The rest of August simply looks very hot, very sunny, and very probably rain-free.