Month: January 2023

Good morning. Houston’s chilly and gray weather will continue for several more days. For the most part the cold and wet conditions will be mostly a nuisance, but we do have some concerns about the potential for icing in far north and west parts of the Houston metro area. Some sunshine will finally return to the region on Friday, with mostly clear skies prevailing through the weekend. Soak it up!

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Tuesday

Coastal areas are seeing some patchy sea fog this morning, and this may persist over the seas until mid-morning. Lows have dropped into the upper 30s in Houston, and we’re only going to warm into the mid-40s today beneath cloudy skies. North winds, gusting to 15 or 20 mph, will not help it feel any warmer. Light, scattered showers will be possible today and tonight, but any accumulations will be slight. Lows overnight will drop into the mid- to upper-30s in the Houston metro area.

As you drive west and north of Houston, particularly past Katy, Waller, and Huntsville, icing may start to become a concern on elevated roads and bridges tonight. Those concerns will become more acute to the west of Columbus and northwest of College Station where conditions will be colder. A major winter icing event is presently unfolding in Central Texas, particularly along the I-35 corridor in places such as Austin and the Dallas-Fort Worth area. These conditions may persist through Wednesday night for Central Texas, and travel should be avoided if at all possible.

Wednesday

Highs on Wednesday may only reach about 40 degrees in Houston, with continued gray skies. Showers will start to become more numerous on Wednesday afternoon and overnight in the Houston region, but again I’m not expecting too much in the way of heavy rainfall. This is good because our soils are already pretty wet, and cold grounds do not absorb much moisture. Any rain that falls will run off, and a few low-lying streets may flood, but I don’t anticipate serious disruptions from these mid-week showers. Lows on Wednesday night may actually be a few degrees warmer than Wednesday night, in the low 40s.

Thursday

Expect more gray skies and rain chances, but these should end later in the day as a cold front moves into the area and drives low pressure away. Overall accumulations for precipitation this week likely will be on the order of 0.25 to 1 inch, with a slight risk of 1 to 2 inches for areas north of Interstate 10. Highs Thursday will be somewhere in the mid-40s, with lows dropping to around 40 degrees Thursday night.

Friday

Some sunshine, finally. Skies should clear out on Friday morning, helping to push highs in the mid-50s. Lows Friday night will drop into the upper 30s in Houston, with a few inland areas possibly seeing a light freeze.

Saturday and Sunday

Both days should see partly to mostly sunny conditions, with highs Saturday of around 60 degrees, and perhaps the upper 60s on Sunday as the onshore flow gets going.

Next week

It looks like a warming trend will continue into about Tuesday, when some rain showers will be possible ahead of the next front. At this point, these rains look mostly light. We’ll just have to wait and see.

This has been a weird winter for Texas in general, and Houston in particular. Normally, during a La Niña winter, we see warmer and drier than normal conditions. We have checked the box for warmth—December was about 2 degrees above normal, and January is going to wind up about 5 degrees above normal. But as for rainfall, this winter has been anything but normal. Some areas of Houston have exceeded their normal allotment of rain for December, January, and February just during the last 10 days.

Those 10-day rain totals are recapped below, and occurred courtesy of cold fronts tapping into deep Gulf moisture after warm spells. This accumulated rainfall brought some bayous and waterways in northwest Houston to near bankfull on Sunday. Although we are going to remain in a wet period through Thursday, I do not think we’ll see enough heavy rainfall to cause the overall situation to change. That is to say, our soils will remain waterlogged, but I don’t anticipate any widespread flooding. Some clearing will finally come Thursday night.

Cold and Ice in Central and Northern Texas

The other big story this morning is the cold. If you’ll recall last week we waffled a lot on whether a front was going to push all the way into Houston. Well, this shallow Arctic front made it it all the way to the coast, and as a result we’re going to be cold all week, with highs generally in the 40s to 50s, and lows in the 40s. This is much colder than we anticipated even a couple of days ago. That is the end of the story for Houston, but for areas just to our north and west there is a rather nasty ice storm unfolding.

In areas such as Burleson, Brazos and Washington counties a light glaze of ice is possible on the roads today and tonight. Further away from the coast in Texas, significant icing is expected in places such as Austin and Dallas, from now through the middle of the day on Wednesday. This will seriously impact travel to and around those areas, and may cause serious power outages as ice accumulates on power lines. Areas that fall under this winter storm warning are shown in pink in the map below.

Monday

Back in Houston, we are going to see a chilly, gray day with scattered (mostly light) showers today as the cold air mass moves into Houston. Temperatures later today will range from the upper 40s for inland areas to lower 50s close to the coast. No travel issues are anticipated in the Houston metro area from the scattered precipitation, but it will be cold, with a northerly wind at about 10 mph. Low temperatures tonight drop to the low 40s in Houston, with upper 30s possible for inland areas.

Tuesday

This will be another cold and gray day with high temperatures generally in the upper 40s. We will again see decent rain chances, about 40 percent, with mostly light to moderate showers. Lows will drop to around 40 degrees on Tuesday night, with blustery northerly winds at 10 to 15 mph, and higher gusts.

Wednesday and Thursday

The atmosphere will become more perturbed by the middle of the week, with a few disturbances moving through ahead of another cold front. The bottom line is that these, too, will be cold and gray days with high temperatures of about 50 degrees, and lows in the 40s. However, rain chances will be better, especially during the Wednesday night period. Although I don’t expect flooding issues to occur, areas north of Interstate 10 may pick up an additional 1 to 2 inches of rainfall through Thursday of this week, with 0.5 to 1.5 inches for areas south of the freeway. Rain chances should finally start to ebb by Thursday afternoon as the next front moves through to clear us out.

Friday

Behold, the Sun does exist! We’ll see it on Friday, with mostly sunny skies and high temperatures in the upper 50s. However these clearing skies will also allow for colder temperatures on Friday night. Lows will drop into the 30s, probably, with the potential for a light freeze for inland areas. We’ll see.

Saturday, Sunday, and beyond

This weekend looks to see mostly sunny skies, with highs in the 60s. Yes, my friends, a sunny weekend. It should be something. We’ll be on the start of a warming trend by Sunday, with highs climbing into the low 70s by the early part of next week.

Good morning. We just wanted to offer a Sunday post for a couple reasons. First, obviously, after this week’s storms, we know a lot of people are going to be sensitive to the mention (or sound) of thunderstorms. Secondly, we have more confidence in today’s forecast.

What’s changed since Friday? Honestly, not a whole lot. We’re getting areas of heavy rain, as expected. But I think both confidence and intensity of heavy rain has increased enough for us to place the area under a Stage 1 flood alert on our flood scale.

We have already seen parts of western Harris County, which were hardest hit this past week in terms of rain see over 2 inches of rainfall. The Weather Prediction Center has kept much of the area under a slight risk (level 2/4) of excessive rainfall for today.

Basically, given Tuesday’s rain, the fact that today’s rain is performing or overperforming to this point, and the shorter-range model guidance for the rest of today, we felt it necessitated an upgrade in messaging. So, please watch for areas of street flooding, especially across western Harris, northern Harris, southern Montgomery, Liberty, and Chambers Counties today, east to Beaumont.

Radar as of 8:35 shows numerous areas of heavier rainfall, especially near Liberty and Cleveland, as well as across northern and western Harris, Montgomery, and Wharton Counties.

With a front essentially crawling across the area today, repetitive rounds of storms are likely, and that’s why we have the flooding risk. Rain tapers to isolated showers this evening.

Severe weather

We want to be clear about today’s forecast. Two things can be true simultaneously: 1.) Some of the storms later this morning or this afternoon could be strong to severe. 2.) This setup looks absolutely nothing like the one that caused Tuesday’s severe weather and tornado outbreak.

This looks to be more of a classic Houston severe weather setup, with the risk for isolated cells producing gusty winds, hail, or yes, even a brief spinup. The odds of this are modestly higher east of Houston into Louisiana. I wouldn’t dwell on this too much about this today, but I also did not experience a tornado on Tuesday, so I get it. It’s a good idea to just monitor the weather through the afternoon to be safe.

Monday & Tuesday

Additional showers are possible on both Monday and Tuesday this week, but at this time, we do not expect heavy rainfall. That chance may increase later in the week, however.

The front is going to essentially stall out over the area. What that does is create challenges for temperature forecasting. I would anticipate Monday being a cool day right now with temperatures generally in the 50s. All bets are off on Tuesday and beyond. Ensemble guidance projects high temperatures on Tuesday could be as low as 50 degrees or as warm as 75 degrees. Basically, the exact location of the front will determine how warm or cool we get in the days ahead. Have your wardrobe planned for multiple seasons this week. Eric will detail this more on Monday. We will update (if needed) again later today.