Cold comfort: After a rainy May still no 90° day for Houston

Houston recorded a staggering 24.84 inches of rain in March, April and May at Bush Intercontinental Airport. That three month total for spring ranks second for this period in the city’s history all time—behind only last year with its 26.61 inches.

Clearly this has caused widespread flooding problems, particularly north of Harris County, along Spring and Cypress creeks, as well as to the west, along the entire Brazos River watershed, which is presently experiencing historic flooding. And the misery is not over, with more heavy rain likely from Thursday through Saturday or Sunday.

But the clouds have had one silver lining—temperatures. May ended with an average temperature of 74.5 degrees, which is 2.4 degrees below normal. That’s not among the 10 coldest Mays on record for the city, and we weren’t going to reach that list because the month had only one real cool front, back during the first week when temperatures fell into the 50s for a few nights. Instead we mostly had cooler days because of the clouds and the rains. The average high was 83.1 degrees, and amazingly we still haven’t had a 90-degree day in 2016.

(National Weather Service)
(National Weather Service)

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June’s site sponsor: Meyerland Animal Clinic, P.A.

A new month means a new sponsor for Space City Weather, and I’m pleased to announce that Meyerland Animal Clinic, P.A. will support the site in June.

(Meyerland Animal Clinic, P.A.)
(Meyerland Animal Clinic, P.A.)

 

Thanks to their generous support we can provide all of our weather content for free, and without advertisement, for the entire month of June. The advantage of the sponsorship model is that we are under no pressure to generate web traffic for the sake of web traffic—so there’s no hype, no click bait and no nonsense. All we’ll do is continue to make the best possible forecasts we can make. So if you appreciate that, and have furry friends, please check them out!

Heavy rains still on tap for Houston this week

Good morning. Strong storms approached the western Houston metro area on Tuesday evening, but fortunately they died as they moved into western Harris County. Unfortunately we probably won’t be as lucky for the rest of the week.

TODAY

Tuesday night’s rains over the Brazos Valley certainly didn’t help with the rise of the Brazos River, which is now expected to crest near 55 feet near Richmond tonight, about 10 feet above flood stage.

The rising Brazos River. (National Weather Service)
The rising Brazos River. (National Weather Service)

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