Month: June 2022

Well, we failed to officially hit 100 degrees in Houston this weekend, instead topping out with a pair of 99s on Friday and Sunday, sandwiching a 98 in there on Saturday. The heat will continue this week, though we’ll likely shave at least a couple degrees off things. That makes your author happy because, conveniently, the Lanza household is dealing with a partial AC outage this morning. Yay.

Monday and Tuesday

More of the same, really. Sun, some clouds, and highs in the mid to upper 90s. Rain chances aren’t zero, but they’re awfully close.

We are already seeing some Saharan dust in the area, and as we move into Tuesday, it will become a bit thicker as another surge of dust arrives in Texas. That may subside a bit on Wednesday morning before additional dust later Wednesday and on Thursday. Look for haze, less blue sky, and maybe some more interesting sunrises and sunsets. Those of you that have respiratory ailments that flare up when these hit should be ready for a couple unpleasant days.

Wednesday

Our next reasonable chance of at least some rainfall comes on Wednesday. If you’re choosing cities for your fantasy rainfall battles on Wednesday, I would probably still skip Houston, but the chance is closer to 10 percent than zero. Look for mid-90s. Southerly winds will continue around 10 to 15 mph, gusting 20 to 25 mph at times.

Thursday and Friday

We have a bit of a mixed bag to close the week. For now, I’d expect temperatures to bounce back a degree or two, with highs in the upper 90s for the most part. Rain chances remain at a paltry 10 to maybe 20 percent on Friday.

You can see that expected rainfall over the next 7 days continues to look abysmal. That said, I do think a couple locations may do better than what is shown here, so we’ll hold out hope that some of us get lucky.

Beyond Friday

The weekend gets a little more interesting at least. We will have strong high pressure anchored over Kansas, which is a bit farther north than what we dealt with this weekend. This will allow for continued hot weather, yes, but there may be some “noise” that can sneak in underneath the high.

So I would say that rain chances may actually improve a bit this weekend into early next week. There are some signs of a weak “backdoor” cold front trying to slide in from Louisiana on Sunday or Monday thanks to a pretty strong trough in the atmosphere along the East Coast. Whether that gets here or not is TBD, but just having that in the neighborhood may be enough to trigger some scattered downpours at least.

Bottom line: Rain chances look better this weekend, though still not especially high, and it will remain quite hot.

Tropics

The National Hurricane Center is outlining an area in the western Caribbean for possible development this week.

While this probably is something to at least monitor, I don’t think there is a lot of concern about this here. With that very strong ridge over the Central U.S., that argues that whatever happens there will likely stay suppressed to our south. Still, we will keep an eye on things just in case.

Summer will continue to tighten its grip on Houston this weekend with at least 3 straight days of near-100 degree temperatures ahead. On average, our first 100 degree day isn’t until mid-July. Many years don’t see one at all. In fact, our last 100 degree day was August 29, 2020 on the backside of Hurricane Laura. We’ll see if we break through this weekend.

Drought continues to be a notable topic. While it’s been hot quite early, this setup remains very unlike 2011, so let’s not use that as a comparison. Some other drought years in the 80s and 90s are probably more applicable comparisons. Drought coverage actually improved statewide over the last week, thanks to some showers and storms in West Texas. East Texas saw drought begin to expand again. In the Houston area, we were up about 10 percent week over week.

Harris County is now almost fully covered by drought, with some severe drought now taking hold across the southeast third and nearly all of Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston Counties. Extreme drought expanded this week to cover portions of Brazoria, Matagorda, Wharton, Chambers, and Jackson Counties. With no meaningful rain likely over the next week and 100 degree weather, it’s safe to assume this will expand further next week.

Today through Sunday

As noted above, expect sunshine and heat on repeat. It will be near or above 100 degrees inland each day, in the 90s at the coast, and all locations will see 70s to low-80s each morning. Please do take it easy this weekend, as our bodies are not acclimated to this sort of high summer heat yet. Heat advisories are a virtual guarantee this weekend.

Early next week

The large area of high pressure over Texas helping to fuel the heat this weekend will begin to slip eastward on Monday and Tuesday. This will at least open the Gulf up a little bit for some daytime sea breeze thunderstorms. While rain chances still look rather pathetic and no better than 10 to 20 percent each day, it’s still a bit better than it has been. Because the core of the heat does pull away, this should allow us to “cool” back into the mid or upper-90s for highs each day with nighttime lows still in the 70s to near 80 degrees.

Later next week

Another area of high pressure is going to surge into the southern Plains for the end of next week.

This one looks to anchor a little farther north than the one we see this weekend. While this will likely keep the door cracked open for some sea breeze storms each day, again, chances look rather low and temperatures may creep up another degree or two.

Bottom line: Excessively hot and humid for June over the next week, with heat peaking today through Sunday. A little “less hot” next week with non-zero rain chances (but still low). Maybe hotter toward next weekend again with continued generally low rain chances. The next 2 weeks of rainfall anomalies per the European ensemble model?

Ugly.

Tropics

Some models do continue to try and put a disturbance in the Bay of Campeche late next week, but no reliable model develops it into anything organized at this point. So nothing for us to worry about out there or on the horizon.

Good morning. Houston’s heat wave will continue for the foreseeable future, at least through the early part of next week and possibly longer. Temperatures will peak this weekend, likely reaching 100 degrees for much of the area and setting numerous records. With high pressure dominating, rain chances will continue to remain low to non-existent.

This morning I’d also like to address what might perhaps be best characterized as “tropics silly season.” This is when “scary” maps showing a large hurricane striking Texas or other parts of the Gulf coast are shared on social media, as has been happening this week. These forecast maps are typically not falsified. They’re real products, but they are not representative of reality. What I mean is that the computer model has indeed generated such an output, but this output often comes at 12-, or 14-, or even 16-days after initialization, and therefore simply no longer bears any reality toward what will happen. Weather models simply cannot provide this specific of a forecast, that far out.

They key to spotting such tropical scare fodder is to look at the forecast hour of the output. If it is greater than 240 hours (10 days) it can safely be discounted. Take the forecast below from the US Global Forecast System model, which came out on Wednesday morning. Now the GFS model has plenty of uses, but it has a known bias for generating phantom storms at this time of year. Anyone sharing this is doing so out of ignorance, at best, and malevolence, at worst.

The bottom line is that the model may indeed be picking up on increasing tropical moisture in the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico in about 10 days time. And something may come of it. But the most likely scenario, by far, is that anything tropical that forms would stay away from the upper Texas coast.

Thursday

Today will be hot and sunny, with high temperatures in the upper 90s. The heat index will near dangerous levels this afternoon so please take care outside. Overnight lows will fall into the upper 70s, except for the coast which will remain in the low-80s. Winds will be light, out of the south.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

More of the same. I’d expect the heat to peak on Saturday and Sunday, with high temperatures reaching 100 degrees for much of the area.

Next week

As winds turn more southerly, we probably will see high temperatures drop back into the upper-90s, and possibly mid-90s. I don’t see much of a chance for a pattern change until at least the second half of next week, and even then it seems that our weather is unlikely to change a whole lot. We shall see.

Good morning. Alas, there is no real change in the forecast: Houston is hot, and we’re going to get hotter. There is no real relief in sight, and rain chances are near zero for the next 8 to 10 days. We are entering a bonafide heat wave, with high temperatures cresting above 100 degrees for much of the region away from the coast for a few days this week. Some people have responded, “Houston is hot in the summer.” And that’s true, it is. But at this time of year the normal high temperature is 92 degrees, not 102 degrees. We have a chance to set several daily high temperatures over the next week.

So yes, Houston is hot in the summer. But we shouldn’t be this hot, this early, in the summer.

Wednesday

High temperatures will generally reach the upper 90s today beneath mostly sunny skies. Winds will be out of the south at 10 mph or, so, with moderately higher gusts. You already know the nights are going to be warm, don’t you? Galveston has broken its record for “high” minimum temperatures the last two nights, with the temperature only dropping to 83 degrees. Expect more of the same in the days ahead.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

As high pressure intensifies over the southern United States, Houston will not be spared. Each of these days could hit 100 degrees, with temperatures likely peaking on Saturday. Please take heat and sun precautions when outside during the middle of the day. Skies will be sunny, with moderate southerly winds.

Next week

The overall pattern changes a bit next week, as high pressure ridge starts to ease a little. That probably means our high temperatures will drop into the mid-90s, and perhaps by Wednesday or Thursday of next week a chance of some sea breeze showers will return.