Month: October 2020

Pleasant fall weekend looms for Houston, “Gamma” to form in the Caribbean

Good morning. Houston’s forecast remains on track, with a succession of mostly sunny days and weak fronts to keep a lid on temperatures and our air reasonably dry. Because there really is nothing else to talk about this morning, we’ll spare a few words on two tropical systems in the Caribbean. The tropics forecast is complicated, but likely inconsequential for the Houston area.

Friday

Drier air is moving into the region in the wake of a front on Thursday, and it feels splendid outside with lows generally in the 60s across the region, and dewpoints in the 50s. High temperatures today will reach into the low-80s under mostly sunny skies, with a light northeasterly breeze. It looks like low temperatures tonight will be the region’s coolest for the next several days, with lows on Saturday morning dropping into the mid-to-upper 50s for inland areas.

Low temperature forecast for Saturday morning. (Pivotal Weather)

Saturday and Sunday

Houston should have a pleasant fall weekend, with highs in the low 80s on Saturday. As winds shift to come from the southeast later in the day, we’ll see a slightly warmer night and then highs somewhere in the mid- or possibly upper-80s on Sunday. The passage of another weak front on Sunday may bring a few clouds, but generally we anticipate a sunny weekend.

Monday and Tuesday

The start of the coming work week should bring more of the same, with highs in the 80s, lows in the 60s, lots of sunshine, and a fair amount of dry air in the wake of Sunday’s front.

After that?

We may see another weak front by around Thursday, and this may bring some clouds into the sky and our first real chance of rain in awhile. But honestly, I don’t have much confidence in the forecast after the middle of next week, so we’ll have to get back to you on Monday.

The Caribbean Sea is fueling two tropical systems. (National Hurricane Center)

The tropics

So there are still two systems in or near the Caribbean Sea that the National Hurricane Center is tracking. The low-pressure area near the Yucatan Peninsula now has an 90 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression or Tropical Storm Gamma over the next two days. It is being aided by the front that pushed through Houston several days ago, and deep into the Gulf of Mexico. This front is providing a northerly flow to help the storm complete a circulation, which has trade winds on the other side.

How an old front is helping to develop a circulation. (NOAA)

This system is likely to move toward the Yucatan Peninsula over the next day or two. There it may get swallowed up by interaction with land, dry air over the Gulf, and an not-great shear environment. However, it is possible that something emerges into the Bay of Campeche in a few days, and wanders around there—bottled up by the additional fronts coming into Texas and high pressure.

After this, who knows? It could get pushed into Mexico, eventually, or maybe pulled north or northeast. It remains very difficult to see this system (or the one behind it) affecting the upper Texas coast, but we’ll continue to watch it for you and update if anything changes. Have a great weekend!

Houston’s weather—sunny for as far as the eye can see

September ended last night, and all told Houston’s Hobby Airport recorded a total of 13.07 inches of rain during the month. This makes it the third wettest September at this location since records were first kept in 1930, the National Weather Service says. Moreover, out of the 1,069 total months of observations, this September ranks as the 20th wettest on record. It was in fact the wettest month at Hobby since August of 2017, when Hurricane Harvey impacted the region. There is no rain to speak of in our present-day forecast, however.

Thursday

Lows this morning are a few degrees warmer than Wednesday morning, and highs probably will shoot up into the upper 80s this afternoon with the fairly dry air and sunny skies. A front will push into Houston later this evening, but the dry and cooler air associated with it will lag, likely arriving Friday morning. Therefore lows Thursday night may only drop into the mid-60s in the city.

Would you like a side of sunshine with your sunshine, Houston? (National Weather Service)

Friday and Saturday

These will be a pair of fine, sunny days, with highs of around 80 degrees. Lows in Houston should drop to near 60 on both Friday and Saturday nights—with warmer conditions along the coast, and cooler weather prevailing inland. By Saturday the onshore flow should resume.

Sunday

This should be a slightly warmer day, with highs reaching the mid, or possibly upper 80s, beneath sunny skies. We still think a secondary push of dry air will back into the area from the northeast sometime on Sunday, although I’m not highly confident in how strong, or persistent it will be.

Next week

The the wake of Sunday’s (weak?) front, expect highs to likely stay within the low- to mid-80s for the first couple of days next week with lows in the 80s. As we’ve been saying this won’t be cold weather, but it will be mild. We still expect some clouds to begin dotting the skies by around next Wednesday as humidity begins to return with vengeance. Some slight rain chances return by Friday or so.

Tropics

The National Hurricane Center is now tracking two disturbances in or near the Caribbean Sea, and its five-day tropical outlook can look pretty intimidating at first glance. The first system, shown in red, has a 70 percent chance of developing over the next five days, and the follow-on system a 20 percent chance.

Tropical outlook for 7am CT on Thursday. (National Hurricane Center)

However, the reality is that the overall pattern suggests high pressure moving into Texas early next week should buffer the state from both storms. The map below shows the European model’s ensemble track forecast for all tropical lows from now through next Saturday. The model basically forces anything that forms into the Bay of Campeche, and of those that survive, a few eventually get pulled northeast toward Louisiana or Florida.

European model ensemble forecast for all tropical tracks through Saturday, October 10. (Weathernerds.org)

So here’s what we think. Is it annoying that there are two potential tropical storms looming in the Caribbean Sea? Sure. Do we believe any of them are likely to threaten Texas in a meaningful way? At this time it’s very difficult to see how that happens.