Month: June 2018

Scattered storms set for Father’s Day in Houston

Good morning, and happy Father’s Day to those celebrating today. For the most part, the forecast is on track as we’ve been describing it for several days now, but there are a couple things to keep tabs on. And if your travels will take you well south of the area, more toward Corpus Christi, you’ll want to keep a closer eye on the weather. Let’s jump in.

Quick Summary

Here are a few bullet points with the main takeaways that we want to convey today.

  • Scattered storms will develop today for much of the area with locally heavy downpours. Probably not a total washout, but you’ll dodge raindrops.
  • Heavier rains likely tonight and Monday, particularly southeast of downtown Houston. Areas of street flooding will be possible in heavier downpours.
  • Heaviest rain chances should move off to our southwest for midweek, but rain chances stay elevated in and around Houston.
  • Total rainfall of two to four or five inches will be the average across the entire area through midweek. There will be smaller, isolated pockets that see higher amounts upwards of seven, eight, or nine inches, most likely closer to the Bay Area or Galveston.

Now

As of about 8-8:30 AM Sunday, the Houston area is all quiet. We have a few isolated showers, mainly south and east of downtown Houston. And for much of this morning, we’ll be fine with just a couple downpours.

A radar loop early Sunday morning shows just some sporadic showers, with some heavier rain offshore of Louisiana. (College of DuPage)

Meanwhile, looking at a bigger picture view of things, satellite this morning shows our disorganized disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico now. Heavier thunderstorms are occurring well offshore. This is what we’re watching for tonight and Monday.

More organized thunderstorms (not an organized tropical disturbance) are offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Those should arrive in our area later tonight and Monday. (Tropical Tidbits)

In terms of tropical development, the National Hurricane Center continues to carry a token 20% chance over the next 48+ hours. That’s a fair assessment, and we feel that impacts to our area will be similar regardless of if this thing meets technical definitions or not within the next couple days.

Rest of Sunday

So what can we expect for the rest of today? Well, as this disturbance creeps toward Texas, expect numerous showers and thunderstorms to pop up late this morning and afternoon across most of the area. I’m not going to classify Father’s Day afternoon as a complete washout, but you will likely be dodging raindrops at least once, if not a few times this afternoon. So if you are planning anything outdoors, have a backup plan. Most of the area will see a couple tenths to maybe a half inch of rainfall. Some will see less, and some may see in excess of one or two inches where rains are most persistent. Today’s rainfall will be a nuisance more than anything for most folks.

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Rain showers coming to Houston Sunday through Tuesday

Welcome to the weekend, everyone. We’ll be updating the site both on Saturday and Sunday out of an abundance of caution, rather than because we’re particularly concerned about the potential for flooding this weekend. The overall story remains the same: heavy rain potential increases on Sunday and Monday, with the biggest threat some localized high rainfall rates. As Houston floods go, this is not likely to be a memorable one.

Average of rainfall forecasts from the European ensemble model for now through Tuesday. (Weather Bell)

Saturday

The weekend will start out mostly sunny, with a high in the low 90s on Saturday. Rain chances should increase later today, with 30 to 50 percent chances near the coast, and lower chances inland. Because moisture levels won’t spike until Sunday, we don’t anticipate any concerns from heavy rains. If you have outdoor plans today, I’d press ahead.

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Houston weather this weekend—be wary but not too worried

Please allow me a few words of reflection this morning before we get to the forecast. (It really hasn’t changed much—2 to 4 inches of rain for much of the area, with the potential for greater amounts possible in some locations. We have some concerns, which we discuss below, but don’t anticipate major, widespread problems at this time).

Amazingly we have been talking about the rainfall for “this coming weekend” for nearly a full week. This began late on the afternoon of Friday, June 8, when a couple of local forecasters looked at the GFS operational model (re-posted below) and called attention to the fact that it showed a hurricane moving into Texas on Sunday, June 17. I was taking a family vacation at the time, but received several messages from readers concerned about this, so I asked Matt to write about it. He authored an excellent update titled, “Yes, we saw the Friday PM GFS model; we aren’t stressing.” This kind of perspective is precisely why we started this site.

The GFS model run last Friday showed a hurricane hitting Texas this Sunday. Oh noes! (Tropical Tidbits)

What concerns me is that we have now been writing about this event for a week, and there is a non-trivial chance that for much of Houston this will not be more than a few significant thunderstorms. This sort of rainfall does not warrant the amount of attention it has received. And if Houston does receive the 2-4 inches of rain over a few days that we anticipate, it will degrade public confidence in meteorology as the hype will not match reality—i.e. the boy who cried wolf. I understand that people are highly sensitized after Hurricane Harvey, but every storm is not Harvey (or even close). So I just wanted to reiterate what I wrote at the outset of hurricane season: “Social mediarology” plays on the fears of people, and therefore tends to get shared widely. If you’ll promise to not fall for these kinds of fear-mongering posts, we’ll make a pledge to you: If we believe there is a credible threat to Houston, we will report that immediately. And if we haven’t written about it, the post you’ve seen on Facebook is probably garbage. Fortunately we have a sponsor like Reliant, which doesn’t value clicks, but rather reliability. Now, on to the forecast.

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Tropical moisture will surge into Texas this weekend

Cooler and significantly wetter weather remains on tap for the weekend—at this point Sunday looks like the wettest day—but with a disorganized tropical system moving into Mexico we don’t see any signal yet for widespread, significant flooding. So we’re watchful, but not overly concerned at this point. If you’ve been following along with Matt’s updates this week, you pretty much know what to expect.

Thursday and Friday

Houston endured highs of 97 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, and that trend should pretty much continue to end the work week. Warm days will be punctuated with isolated to scattered showers, some of which can be intense as we saw with some storms near Tomball on Wednesday evening. But for the most part, conditions will just be hot and partly to mostly sunny.

Tropical disturbance

We continue to think the tropical disturbance now moving over the Yucatan Peninsula, which will move westward into the Bay of Campeche and likely into northern Mexico, will not develop. That means that the primary threat from the system remains tropical moisture, which should spread into Texas this weekend.

The National Hurricane Center gives the tropical disturbance a 0 percent chance of developing during the next 2 days, and a 10 percent chance the next 5 days. (National Hurricane Center)

The key question is where the greatest amount of moisture will surge inland, and unfortunately we can’t say this with any precision. Will it be Houston? Beaumont? Victoria? We just can’t tell you yet. With that in mind, here’s our best stab at forecast conditions for this weekend.

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