Month: May 2025

In brief: Steel thyself, for today is likely to be the hottest day of 2025 so far. But the upside of this is that the region will see about 24 hours of modestly drier air starting late this afternoon or evening. Looking ahead to Memorial Day weekend, a chance of rain returns Sunday and especially Monday.

Tuesday

The city of Houston recorded its hottest day of the year last Wednesday, when the mercury hit 96 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport. Today, in advance of a weak front, we may go a tick or two higher. This is because of a pronounced warm, southwesterly flow in the atmosphere, and front that will be compressing air as it moves toward the region. Much of the city away from the coast will push into the mid- to upper-90s, and with sticky dewpoints in the 70s it’s going to feel like August outside. This seems really, really unfair for May, doesn’t it?

Well yes, it does. Fortunately, a weak front is going to slowly slide into the area this afternoon and evening. It may bring a few brief, scattered showers and thunderstorms with it. By around sunset this evening, areas inland of Highway 59/Interstate 69 should see dewpoints in the 50s. Air temperatures will still be warmish, for sure, but at least humidity will drop some. It probably won’t be until after midnight, or a few hours after, before these somewhat lower dewpoints drop all the way to the coast. With the drier air, low temperatures tonight probably will fall into the upper 60s for areas inland of Interstate 10, while being a bit warmer closer to the coast.

Wednesday

Don’t blink or you’ll miss the drier air. South of I-10 dewpoints will start climbing by Wednesday afternoon, and the humidity will spread inland everywhere by Wednesday evening. With the daytime sunshine, I expect highs to still reach the mid-90s on Wednesday with light northeast winds turning southeast. Lows drop to the low- to mid- 70s overnight.

Thursday

This should be a hot and partly sunny day, with temperatures in the mid-90s. I expect to see somewhat of a disturbed atmosphere aloft, and this normally might contribute to a chance of showers. However, this upper air will have to overcome a capping inversion, and for this reason I am going to limit rain chances to about 20 percent, and that is probably only for areas south of Interstate 10. Lows on Thursday night will drop into the 70s.

Friday

This should be a sunny, hot, and humid day with temperatures in the mid-90s.

Memorial Day weekend

The first third of the holiday weekend probably will see a continuation of Friday’s weather, but the forecast turns a bit more interesting later on. The combination of a weakening ridge of high pressure and a somewhat disturbed atmosphere may bring a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms into the region on Sunday, with better chances still on Memorial Day, perhaps 50 percent or higher Daytime highs should be cooler, perhaps in the lower 90s.

Next week

A wetter and somewhat cooler pattern should settle in next week. Probably we will see more May-like temperatures in the upper 80s, with a daily chance of showers and thunderstorms. We’ll see. Almost anything will be better than today’s August in May.

In brief: Houston will see temperatures spike on Tuesday ahead of a weak front that may (very) briefly provide some drier air. The rest of the week looks warm and humid, with a chance of rain returning by the weekend.

Above average temperatures

As we have been discussing, Houston has been experiencing a warm spell in the middle of May. During the last five days, the average temperature (the daily high and low, divided by two) has been 9 or 10 degrees above normal. This weather has largely been driven by a high pressure system that brought sinking air and mostly sunny skies. This high pressure system has now shifted away, but for reasons discussed below we are still going to be quite warm this week, with one especially hot day (Tuesday) in the forecast.

Monday

Highs today should peak in the low 90s, and skies that are at least partly cloudy should help keep a lid on temperatures. In addition to high humidity, we will see fairly strong southerly winds, gusting up to 30 mph this afternoon. Lows tonight will be muggy, perhaps only briefly dropping below 80 degrees in the city of Houston. Coastal locations, of course, will see moderately cooler days and warmer nights.

Tuesday

A cool front will approach the area on Tuesday, and this will result in compressional heating as winds turn to come from the southwest. (Effectively, the front is compressing and heating air ahead of it as it advances). How hot we get on Tuesday will depend on cloud cover during the afternoon, but much of the region has a solid chance to get into the upper 90s. One other thing to watch for is the possibility of isolated showers and thunderstorms with the front. I think a capping inversion will be too much for the front to overcome, but it’s something we cannot rule out.

Drier air from this front should eventually move into the area over night, possibly reaching all the way down to the coast. Most of the area could see lows in the lower 70s by Wednesday morning.

Wednesday

The front, to the extent it impacts our area, will be briefly lived. But it should have some impact on Wednesday’s weather, bringing mostly sunny skies, highs in the lower 90s, and somewhat lower humidity. But it will be washed away quickly, with humidity climbing by Wednesday night. Expect low temperatures in the mid-70s.

Thursday and Friday

These look to be a pair of mostly sunny, humid days with high temperatures in the low 90s for most, with overnight lows in the mid-70s. We should see southerly winds, but gusts probably won’t get above 15 or 20 mph.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend should see ongoing, mostly sunny weather with high temperatures in the low 90s. However, with only modest high pressure in place I think there is perhaps a 10 percent chance of some showers on Saturday afternoon, and 30 percent on Sunday. So that will be something to watch for.

Next week

The overall pattern for next week looks slightly cooler (highs around 90 degrees, maybe) and wetter. We sure could use some rain, and the atmospheric setup would support it. But I certainly am not going to confidently forecast rain 7 to 10 days from now after an extended dry spell. However, we can at least have some hope for change.

In brief: This post covers our official summer outlook for Houston, forecasting temperature and precipitation for June, July, and August. We think this summer will be hot, of course. But we have some hope that it won’t be exceptionally hot like 2023 and 2024.

When is summer?

Let us begin this post by defining what summer is in Houston. If we go strictly by the equinox, summer begins on June 21 and will end on September 22. Some readers may think, well, actually it feels a lot like summer outside right now. However, a person on Threads has the right of it with this sentiment:

It can feel like summer in Houston from mid-May through mid-October. However, I don’t like that definition because parts of May can still feel spring-like (here’s hoping a front makes it next week) and we also can start to have some hope for real cool fronts starting in mid-September. Therefore, we prefer the meteorological definition of summer in Houston: June, July, and August. And since we’re two weeks from June 1, let’s get to the outlook.

Temperatures

Let me tell you, the presence of a fairly persistent ridge in mid-May, and temperatures solidly in the mid-90s, does not give Matt and I the warm and fuzzies about the upcoming summer. It engenders some dread. However, perhaps all is not lost.

An often important player, El Niño or La Niña, is unlikely to be a factor this summer. We generally expect neutral conditions to persist through August. For this reason we can look at trends over the last several years, as well as statistical modeling, to get an idea of what to expect for the upcoming summer.

The last few years, especially 2023 and 2024, have seen exceptional heat in Houston. We have set all kinds of records in daytime and especially nighttime temperatures. That trend, in concert with this month’s early onset of temperatures in the mid-90s (we have set multiple high temperature records this week) is very concerning. However, when we look at the seasonal modeling, the forecast is for near-normal temperatures in June, July, and August.

So what to make of all of this? I like the solution from NOAA’s seasonal temperature outlook (shown above), which predicts a likelihood of above normal temperatures this summer. However we can have some hope, I think, that this summer won’t be frying-pan hot like the last two years.

Precipitation

I’m going to throw my hands up in the air on this one. The seasonal modeling isn’t much help here (some models are very dry, and some less so). As is often the case, whether we see a drought this summer will come down to a couple of factors. The first is high pressure, if we get persistent systems that set up for weeks at a time, we can pretty quickly slip into drought conditions during the hot summer months (the region is doing mostly fine now). And secondly, will we see low pressure systems, depressions, or tropical storms and hurricanes from the Gulf? We certainly don’t want the latter two, but often times the only way to get meaningful rain in July and August is from tropical lows.

NOAA, for what its worth, is calling for near normal, to slightly above normal precipitation this summer in Houston. We shall see, I guess. The trick in Houston in the summer is to somehow get some rain, but not a ton of rain, all at once. Hard to do in August, I’m afraid.

A message from our longtime partner, Reliant

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In brief: The heat goes on. And on. Houston is also dealing with a good bit of haze and smoke in the air from Central American agricultural fires, common in late spring. We remain cautious about a brief cool front next week, however.

First, a quick programming note. As summer is now underway in Houston, look for the Space City Weather summer outlook later this morning from Eric!

Haze, haze go away

Temperatures this week, while very, very hot have actually come up a couple degrees short of forecasts for the most part. Not by like 10 degrees or anything but something on the order of 1 to 3 degrees. Why? Almost certainly because of the low clouds and haze that have been ever-present over the area.

Why the haze? Well, this is the time of year when agricultural burning is ongoing in Mexico and Central America. How much? A lot.

With winds out of the south across the Gulf, this will transport all that smoke into our area. This is a common issue here in Texas this time of year, but it feels a little worse because of how hot it is so early. Whatever the case, given the number of fires ongoing and the amount of smoke already in the air to our south, I do not expect that this haze will relent anytime soon.

Today through Sunday

The heat continues. We may begin to push heat advisory criteria at some point soon. We’ve had a couple bursts of drier air this week that helped keep heat index values mostly in check (we did touch 100° for heat index at both IAH and Hobby yesterday briefly). While that could continue, we should begin to see a bit less wind. Overall, it will just start feeling a little more uncomfortable today, tomorrow, and perhaps Sunday. Expect highs in the low to mid-90s all three days with clouds, sun, and haze.

Rain chances are pretty close to zero, however, if you live around Brenham, Navasota, or Huntsville, it looks like there will be scattered thunderstorms firing up to your northwest on Friday afternoon. I would not be shocked if some of those make an attempt to reach these areas this evening. Just something to note.

Next week

Monday and Tuesday will probably just serve as an extension of the current weather pattern. So look for clouds, sun, haze, and 90s.

Now, later Tuesday there could be some showers or thunderstorms around closer to the area. And this continues to look like it *may* come with a brief front. If that can happen, it would still be rather hot on Wednesday, but the front would take a huge bite out of the humidity, in addition to cooling off our nights a bit. Will it happen? <Cue: Dramatic music> Find out Monday on the next edition of <studio audience cheering> SPACE! CITY! WEATHER!