Month: April 2017

Some storms possible in Houston today, but honestly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Good morning. As expected, fairly strong storms have developed well north of Houston during the overnight hours, generally from Temple to Lufkin. The primary question for today is how far those storms sag southward.

Today

A convective system has formed along a dying cold front, which should make some general southeastward motion this morning. Several high-resolution forecast models (which are frequently run, and cover a smaller geographic area than global models such as the GFS) indicate that a cluster of these storms will break off move toward Houston later this morning, and into the early afternoon. If this happens, it would bring some heavy rain—perhaps 1 to 2 inches—and gusty winds. With that said, there’s not too much support for this idea on the radar, at least not yet, and I’m pretty skeptical. Needless to say, the forecast is pretty uncertain, with storms possible, but far from a lock.

The radar as of 6:45 am CT. Storms are north of Houston this morning. (Intellicast)

Regardless, high temperatures should reach about 80 degrees under mostly cloudy skies, and the threat of rain and storms should end this afternoon or evening. Overnight lows will fall into the mid-60s.

(Space City Weather is sponsored this month by The Mole, a Jonathon Price novel.)

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Storms most likely stay northwest of Houston this week

Good morning. After a spectacular stretch of spring-like weather in Houston last week, conditions will turn more gray, with some rain chances, for most of this week. There’s only a modest chance that storms stray into Houston, however.

Today

The main driver of the region’s weather over the next couple of days will be a slow-moving cold front that will bring some storms across central Texas as it drifts to the east. For most of the Houston area this probably won’t mean a whole lot, but there is a chance of stormy weather to the northwest of the metro region, particularly for College Station and other areas in the Brazos Valley later today and tonight.

Regions of most likely storm activity today and tonight are shaded yellow. (NOAA)

For Houston, highs today will climb to about 80 degrees under mostly cloudy skies, with some gusty southerly winds. I don’t think most of the area will see significant rain today, or this evening.

(Space City Weather is sponsored this month by The Mole, a Jonathon Price novel.)

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Sublime spring weather continues

We’ve had a number of really, really nice spring days in recent weeks. And expect us to get another one today. Let’s get to it.

Colorado State Hurricane Outlook

First, I want to just touch on a report released yesterday from the tropical weather research group at Colorado State University. The CSU team produces one of the most widely used and anticipated seasonal hurricane outlooks for the Atlantic. Their forecast for this year calls for below normal activity in the Atlantic basin.

They’re going with 11 storms, four hurricanes, and two major hurricanes for the 2017 season. Recall that last year saw 15 named storms, seven hurricanes, and four major (Category 3 or stronger) hurricanes. Last year’s CSU April forecast called for 12/5/2 in that order. This year will be challenging with risks of another El Nino developing and some uncertainty as to what the ocean temperature profiles in the Atlantic Ocean will look like during the peak of the season. We’ve been in an active period of Atlantic hurricanes since 1995, and there are questions as to how much longer that will last. They will monitor these variables and update their forecast in early June.

Klotzbach’s team also helps put together landfall probabilities by county. You can examine the details yourself, but in the interest of ease, they give a 3.7% probability of one or more named storms making landfall in Galveston County, compared to a 4.3% chance historically in any given year. Texas as a whole has a 38.2% chance using their methodology, compared to a climatological average of 43.3% that a named storm will make landfall. In a nutshell: Slightly lower than normal odds for a landfall than in an average season.

Use hurricane outlooks with caution

There’s a BIG caveat here. Remember, seasonal hurricane outlooks are primarily an academic exercise. Operationally and for most of you, they don’t matter. If we have two storms in the Atlantic all season and one is category 4 that plows into Galveston, it was a below normal season but an awfully bad one for a lot of people. They’ve become a curiosity we need to share, and the group at Colorado State does really good and ultimately important research. But you should ignore this forecast and go ahead and think about preparing for hurricane season anyway. 

(Space City Weather is sponsored this month by The Mole, a Jonathon Price novel.)

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Cold weather across Texas this morning—winter’s last breath?

Our run of lovely, spring-time weather will continue through the weekend before rain chances return early next week, including the possibility of some thunderstorms. Texas won’t be this cold again for some time.

Thursday

Lows this morning fell into the upper 40s for inland areas of Houston, and even Galveston is going to get down to around 60 degrees. Given the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico already this season, barring a very strong cold front later this month or early in May, I suspect Thursday morning’s lows will be the region’s coldest until late October or November.

This may be Texas’ coldest morning until late October or early November. (Weather Bell)

We’ll have another splendid day today, with highs near 80 degrees, and another cool night with temperatures just a couple of degrees warmer than Thursday morning.

Friday through Sunday

Mostly sunny skies will prevail through the weekend, along with highs in the upper 70s to 80 degrees. The only really noticeable change will be a rise in humidity, beginning later Friday or early Saturday, that will bring overnight lows up from the mid-50s on Friday morning to around 70 degrees by Sunday night. Enjoy.

(Space City Weather is sponsored this month by The Mole, a Jonathon Price novel.)

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