In brief: Well, here we are. The start of the six-month Atlantic hurricane season. In this post we attempt to give you the information you need about what to expect and how to prepare, without raising your anxiety too much. A little preparation now will go a long way if the worst happens.

Hurricane season forecast

We do not put a whole lot of stock in seasonal hurricane forecasting. It can provide a general sense of what is likely to happen, but there is no precision in the details that matter. For example, what we really want to know is whether there will be a lot of active storms in the Gulf of Mexico, not the central Atlantic Ocean. And since we remain a couple of months away from the ‘peak’ of hurricane season we just cannot know these details.

With that said, the general consensus from hurricane season forecasts is that we should see activity levels below normal this year across the Atlantic basin. For example, the average number of named storms is about 14 per season, and this year the most likely range of named storms is between 8 and 14, according to NOAA. The average number of hurricanes is 7, and the expected range is 3 to 6. So this is good news, because fewer storms overall mean fewer “shots on goal” when it comes to striking the Texas coast.

The reason for all of this is that El Niño is very likely to develop soon, and strengthen during the key August and September months. This should help to suppress Atlantic storm activity by increasing wind shear. There are other reasons as well, but the takeaway message here is that instead of seeing a blockbuster season, we are likely to see a quieter one. But a quieter season for the entire Atlantic does not mean a quiet season for Texas if one or two storms threaten here. So as ever, we will remain vigilant here at Space City Weather.

What you should do to prepare

The most important piece of advice we can give you at Space City Weather is to have a plan for what to do if a storm threatens. If you have a plan, then you’ll sleep better and night, and be prepared to put it into action. And this is important, because when a hurricane legitimately does threaten the Houston region, people lose their minds. You don’t want to lose your mind.

The key question you need to decide is under what circumstances you will evacuate. An important factor in all of this is how close you live to the coast. The Houston-Galveston Area Council has some excellent resources to help you prepare at this website. Among them is a “zip-zone” map that helps homeowners identify their vulnerability to different levels of storm surge. This is also how evacuations will be called, by zip codes.

There are other determinants for whether one should evacuate. Winds are a secondary consideration. In Houston that almost always means extended power outages. If you’re not prepared for that, or have someone in your home with a medical condition that requires electricity, then you definitely will want to be prepared to evacuated if a hurricane threatens the Houston area.

For those planning to stay during most storms, here is an example of a good disaster kit checklist. A lot of this is common sense: what supplies would you need to remain in your home for several days, without power, and without access to outside resources? Also please don’t forget about pets, whether you’re staying or evacuating. Also it’s a good idea to check on neighbors. One of the only silver linings of a hurricane, I have found, is that it tends to bring neighbors and neighborhoods together.

A final word. Hurricane season is a long slog, not a sprint. But in Houston the first six weeks or so are typically sleepy, and we typically see activity end here by the end of September. So the most important time to really pay pay attention is from late July through late September. Surprises can always happen, but you need not remain on high alert for six months.

How to find our coverage

As usual, Matt and I will have full coverage here of all storms with any chance to threaten Texas and Louisiana. If you’re interested in broader coverage of the entire Atlantic basin, on a daily basis, then you should also be familiar with our companion site, The Eyewall.

During active threats you can always check our website for updates, or find the “subscribe” box on the home page to sign up for emails whenever we post updates.

Our app is super popular and remains entirely free, without any junk to track you or monetize your data. Through the Space City Weather app you can receive notifications whenever we post an updated forecast, while also checking the radar, seeing a 7-day forecast, or finding local conditions at an official weather station near you. For the Apple version of the app, click here; and for Android, click here. We invest a lot in our app every year to keep it operating smoothly, and add features. This is solely for the benefit of our readers, so please check it out.

How can we do this?

We do this because we love weather and we love Houston. Seriously, over the last decade Space City Weather has become an important part of the Houston community’s fabric, and we take our responsibilities seriously. We’re here for the long haul, and appreciate that our readers are so faithful to the site.

Speaking of the long haul, our partnership with Reliant is a huge part of what we’re able to do here. They provide financial resources to support our operations here, and do the hard work with annual events like Fall Day. This will be the ninth year that Reliant has backed Space City Weather and they’ve been a wonderful partner in powering the site and enabling Matt and I to focus on weather forecasting and communication.

And finally there’s you, the reader. To the extent we have grown, it has been through word of mouth. We have never advertised the site. Rather, our growth has been entirely by word of mouth, with readers telling others about us, or sharing our activity on social media. We are grateful for that. What about financial support? We do hold an annual fundraiser where we sell merchandise and accept donations, but we don’t hold that until November, when the weather is quiet. We don’t want to be seen as trying to capitalize on severe weather when it’s happening.

Social media

As for social media, we do try to reach readers where they are. Here are a list of the places you can find us, and where you can find links to every update we do:

Facebook

Instagram

X/Twitter

TikTok

Threads

Blue Sky

Mastodon

One final thing to note this year: We are trying to do more social media videos. If you follow us on IG or TikTok, you may have seen our forecast videos. We try to do one or two a week to keep people informed. We don’t want to overwhelm you with content, but when something needs to be said, we’ll say it. So be sure and check us out there if you’re a video-first type person.

In brief: In today’s post we have our “please clap” announcement about the beginning of summer. It’s here, and we might as well do our best to survive it. Fortunately we’re not starting off summer this year blistering hot. Also not, we will have higher rain chances during the second half of the week.

Welcome to summer

June 1 marks the beginning of meteorological summer, encompassing the three months of June, July, and August. As we noted last week, summer in Houston typically runs from mid-May through mid-October, and fortunately this year we are not off to a particularly simmering start. For now it appears like we’ll remain in the “Early summer” phase at least through the middle of this month, so that’s pretty good.

Today also marks the official beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season. As usual, the topics to start June this year are pretty quiet, with no points of concern. We’ll be back later today with a post about everything you need to know for the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, so be on the lookout for that.

Monday

Today will likely produce the lowest rain chances of the week. That’s because the high pressure that brought sunny skies over the weekend will retain some impact into this week, and it will be most influential today. Any showers are likely to be brief, and isolated. We can expect partly sunny skies, with highs around 90 degrees in Houston, a touch higher inland and a touch cooler closer to the coast. Humidity will be sky high. Winds remain light, generally from the southeast. Lows tonight will drop into the upper 70s for most locations.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Rain chances each of these two days will push into 30 to 50 percent chance, with partly sunny skies and highs around 90 degrees. Any showers that do form should pass fairly quickly, so I’m not expecting anything too meaningful in terms of accumulations. Lows at night remain warm and fairly sultry.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

I’m putting these four days together because the forecast picture is fairly muddied. As high pressure moves off the atmosphere will open up to the potential for more substantial disturbances, and therefore more widespread rainfall. But storms will not be wall to wall, and each day will likely have some sunshine in addition to rain chances in the vicinity of 50 or 60 percent.

So for the second half of the week we can expect partly sunny days, with highs in the upper 80s, and the potential for showers often during the afternoon. If you have outdoor plans bear in mind there may be problems, but at this point the forecast is far from certain. I think overall rain accumulations will vary widely through the weekend, but most areas can probably expect between 0.5 inch and 1.5 inch total.

Next week

I think we’ll see a little more sunshine next week, with overall rain chances declining somehwat, but not going away entirely. So basically, it will still feel a fair bit like June.

In brief: A quiet weekend looks to be in store for Houston with standard early summer hot weather and minimal rain chances. Things do turn more active again next week with building rain chances after Tuesday.

The topline here is that things look pretty good this weekend for Houston! As Eric noted yesterday, we’re definitely in the early summer phase of things, and with the calendar flipping to June on Monday, that will track. Some good news today: The U.S. Drought Monitor updated on Thursday and shows virtually the entire Houston area completely out of drought now.

As far as I can tell, this is the first time we’ve been this drought-free in the area since late September. It’s been a long while. Even in Corpus Christi, the reservoir levels in that area are as high as they’ve been since last September also.

Although the weekend looks fine, there are some signs we aren’t quite done with rainy weather entirely.

Today and the weekend

I’m not going to promise this weekend will be completely dry. It is almost June after all, and it’s tough to completely void the area of an afternoon downpour in spots. But any showers would be quite random and isolated. Aside from that, it looks fine. Highs will be near 90 or so, maybe in the low-90s in some spots. Mornings should be nice with lows in the 70s.

Monday

We could see a few additional showers in the area on Monday afternoon. But still, the majority of the region looks fairly quiet. More low-90s for highs and mid-70s for lows.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Coverage of rain and thunderstorms should increase to at least “scattered” levels for the middle of the week. Unlike this past week and weekend’s rains, the setup next week looks to favor activity moving off the Gulf or out of Louisiana initially. We could see some gusty thunderstorms with that, along with locally heavy downpours. I doubt we’ll see any of the 3 AM wakeup call stuff like we’ve had this week. Which, great, because we need sleep.

As a sidebar: There is no real serious tropical system risk in the Gulf right now for next week or the week after. The GFS model is often shown this time of year, but it has a very well known, systemic bias of constantly overforecasting tropical storms and hurricanes in May and June. So it can be safely disregarded. That said, it’s not out of the question that a weak, sloppy system forms in the eastern Gulf over the next 2 weeks. Here in Texas, our rain may fall hard at times, but it should not tied to anything tropical.

Later next week

We may flip the flow in the atmosphere later next week, which means storms could form in Central and West Texas and work their way east more like we saw this week. Or we’ll just end up with scattered rain and thunderstorms each day. It’s too soon to speculate on anything specific, as you know how that goes even 24 to 36 hours out sometimes. Whatever the case, it looks unsettled. Highs should back down into the 80s. But we’ll of course need to watch for localized flooding if the rain comes in higher doses. Consult your meteorologist next week to see if rainfall is right for you.

In brief: In today’s post we discuss the region’s slide into summer starting this weekend. However, we are hopeful that Houston will spend an extended period in “early” summer rather than jumping directly into really hot conditions this year. Take the win, y’all!

Phases of summer

If we’re being real, all of summer in Houston is fairly hot and fairly humid. There is no escaping that in a city (located at 29.7 degrees north) that lies not all that far from the tropics and near a large body of warm water. But longtime residents will appreciate that there are different gradations of summer in Houston, which range from somewhat tolerable to utterly miserable. Understanding these different phases may help readers endure the long slog of summer in Houston, which typically runs from late May into mid-October, or nearly five months.

Here are the four phases:

• Early summer: When we first start to see 90-degree temperatures with some regularity, but some nights in the 60s are still possible, and there’s still the thinnest hope of a weak front.
• Mid summer: When highs run from 90 to 95 degrees, and nights are sultry, but you know it could still get worse.
• High summer: Somewhere between late July and early September there’s a period where temperatures reach the upper 90s to low 100s and you realize, “Ok, this really is the worst.”
• Late summer: This is the period in September and early October when days grow shorter and we usually see the first front or two of the season. But most of the time it’s still hot.

The longer Houston can remain in “Early summer” the better. For example, last year Houston hopped right into Mid-summer in the first week of June, with highs in the low- to mid-90s, and even one day with a high of 97 degrees. This year I’m happy to report that we appear likely to ease into summer with a sustained phase of “Early summer.” At this time year, friends, you have to take the small wins in Houston weather where you can. Because in June, July, and August there are very, very few big wins.

Thursday

Conditions are reasonably cool this morning for late May, with lows in the upper 60s across most of the region. We are now going to begin a warming trend, however. Highs today will climb into the upper 80s with mostly sunny skies. Winds, also, will be fairly light, from the northwest at about 5 mph. Lows tonight will be a few degrees warmer, likely in the lower 70s for most of the region.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

The onshore flow will return with a little more oomph this weekend, and with Houston on the edge of a high pressure system we are likely to see mostly sunny skies. We can probably expect daily highs around 90 degrees, perhaps a shade warmer for inland areas, and a bit cooler near the coast. Dewpoints in the lower 70s are by no means ‘comfortable,’ but they’re still notably lower than we’re likely to see later this summer. This weekend really is the definition of “Early summer,” so as we slide into June take it for what it is. Rain chances are near zero this weekend—we could see a stray shower here or there, but probably not.

Next week

Our temperatures will remain in the vicinity of 90 degrees for most of next week. By Tuesday or Wednesday we start to see a few more clouds and there will be a daily chance for some showers. Said chances won’t be too high, nor do rain accumulations look too serious. But showers could take a degree or two off daily highs. Houston’s weather, dare we say it, looks mild as we get into the first week of June?