Good Friday morning, and here we go again with another cold front and storm chances. Fortunately, while we can’t entirely rule out some severe weather, it seems fairly unlikely for most of us. We’ll see lingering clouds Saturday, but we’re set up for some beautiful weather Sunday.
Today
We’re socked in with clouds this morning, indicative of a lot of moisture in place at low levels of the atmosphere. This is all basically “trapped” under a capping inversion (“the cap”) that we often talk about this time of year. What this will likely do is inhibit thunderstorm development over much of the region during the day today, but it will keep things somewhat dreary with clouds and occasional showers or light rain in spots. While we can’t entirely rule out a stray storm north of the Houston area, any significant severe weather threat this afternoon will likely stay way to our north, closer to Texarkana.
It will remain fairly breezy, with gusty onshore winds sustained around 10-20 mph, with higher gusts, especially near the coast.
Tonight & Saturday
As we go into this evening, the cold front will begin to approach the area from the north and west. Right now, I would expect a fairly well organized band of showers and storms with it as it moves through the region around or after midnight. So expect to hear raindrops at some point tonight into Saturday early morning. Will we see severe weather? It’s possible, but I don’t think all the ingredients are quite there for it to occur. If we were to see storms go severe overnight, I think the primary threat would be strong winds. Still, even without severe weather lightning, thunder, gusty winds, and briefly heavy rain are all possible. Total rainfall will be under an inch for most of the region, with some areas likely seeing well under a half-inch.
The front pushes offshore Saturday morning. Expect continued clouds and perhaps even a few lingering showers through about midday Saturday. We should then see slow clearing. Winds will stay gusty but flip from onshore to offshore. Expect those to gradually diminish Saturday afternoon.
The tricky aspect to Saturday’s forecast will be temperatures. They will drop off behind the front, with Saturday morning lows bottoming out in the low 60s at the coast and mid to upper 50s inland (even a bit cooler in the Brazos Valley or up toward Huntsville). But it gets challenging on Saturday afternoon. If cloud cover and showers persist beyond midday and into mid-afternoon, we’ll likely see temperatures hold in the upper 50s to low 60s most of the day. However, if we see clearing and get a good bit of sunshine Saturday afternoon, look for temps to rebound to the upper 60s.
Sunday
Expect a cold start on Sunday morning, with lows in the upper 40s at the coast, mid 40s in the Houston area, and upper 30s or low 40s in the far north (Huntsville/Conroe) and Brazos Valley.
But Sunday afternoon is perfection: Sunshine, highs in the upper 60s, and light winds. Stunning. Enjoy it.
Next week
No big changes to what Eric’s discussed. We’ll see gradually warming temperatures early in the week, peaking on Tuesday or Wednesday near 80 degrees. A weak cold front could briefly knock out some humidity after Wednesday before onshore flow returns again Friday. It appears we will have yet another strong cold front pass through sometime next weekend as well, ushering in some refreshing air once more. We’ll have more on that next week.
Looking at where we are on the calendar, I would very much appreciate these Friday fronts to keep on coming for a few months. A boy can hope, right?
Matt, now that we are approaching the night time hours, what do you think the chances are for us seeing severe weather overnight? Thanks!