Eric Berger

In brief: Houston’s pleasant, fall-like conditions will continue at least through the weekend, with mostly sunny skies and moderate humidity levels. Our clear skies will hold a boon early on Thursday, with good viewing conditions for the Orionid meteor shower.

Meteor shower viewing

The Orionid meteor shower is peaking over the next day or two, but seeing this increase in meteors is complicated by a couple of factors. Locally, the best time to see it will be on Thursday morning, from about 4 am CT and until the onset of nautical twilight. This is because the waxing gibbous Moon sets at 3:53 am, leaving nearly three hours of dark skies before they start to lighten due to the approaching sunrise. The cloud cover forecast for that time period is nearly perfect, with clear skies anticipated.

The Orionids can be one of the better meteor showers a year, with the potential for 20 or more meteors visible per hour, provided you have reasonably dark skies—which of course can be difficult in the urban core of Houston. The source of these meteors is debris from Halley’s Comet, which it leaves behind when shedding ice and dust during its periodic traverses through the inner Solar System. They get their name from the Orion constellation, from which they appear to originate.

Wednesday

Back on Earth there’s nothing too exciting happening with Houston’s weather as high pressure continues to dominate. Conditions are a little muggier this morning, but our flow becomes more northeasterly later today and that should help to push our humidity a bit lower. Expect highs today in the low- to mid-80s with sunny skies and light northeasterly winds. Low temperatures tonight will bottom out at about 60 degrees in Houston, with cooler conditions for outlying areas.

Thursday and Friday

These look to be pleasant days with highs in the low- to mid-80s, sunny skies, and lower humidity. Nights should get down to around 60 degrees, again with the upper 50s possible for inland areas.

Saturday and Sunday

Not much changes this weekend, with highs in the vicinity of 80 degrees, and lows in the lower 60s. Some clouds are possible later on Sunday. Rain chances remain near zero.

Next week

This overall pattern should remain in place next week, with highs in the low 80s and overnight lows in the 60s. We could see some slight rain chances return on Tuesday, briefly. There are potentially better rain chances from next Thursday into the weekend, but the details of that forecast are far enough into the future to be rather blurry.

In brief: It’s an 80s party, baby! Houston’s high temperatures for the foreseeable future should be in the 80s, with lows mostly in the lower 60s. It’s not cold by any means, but it represents a big change from summer heat and humidity.

High pressure during fall

In summer, in Houston, most people are generally familiar with the impacts of high pressure on weather here. We get sunshine. We get sweltering heat. And we get humidity. But what happens when high pressure establishes itself later in the year, during the middle of fall? Well, my friends, you’re about to find out.

Instead of highs in the mid- to upper-90s, we are likely to see highs in the mid-80s. And instead of lows in the upper 70s, generally, we’ll be 15 degrees or so cooler. Also, thanks to mostly northeasterly winds, we’ll see dewpoints in the 50s to lower 60s. This will take much of the stickiness out of the air. And I hope you like this pattern, because it is not going anywhere for quite awhile.

Tuesday

Today will be, you guessed it, sunny. Highs should reach the lower 80s this afternoon, with light northeasterly winds. There will be some showers offshore, but for now I don’t anticipate these will migrate inland. Tonight will be a little warmer, with lows only falling into the mid-60s. But this should be the exception rather than the rule for our weather in the days ahead.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

High temperatures during this period will be in the mid-80s in Houston, with sunny skies, and generally light north and northeasterly winds. This flow will continue to bring just enough dry air into the region to keep our humidity lower, and help overnight lows fall to around 60 degrees in the city. Outlying areas should see even cooler conditions.

Saturday and Sunday

We have more sunshine this weekend, although a few clouds could start to mix in on Sunday. Highs will generally be in the low- to mid-80s, with overnight temperatures in the low- to mid-60s. One thing to look for this weekend will be somewhat stronger easterly winds. These may gust up to 20 or 25 mph from the east during the afternoon hours.

Next week

Not much changes during the first few days of next week: more sunshine and 80s. At some point next week, perhaps on Thursday or Friday, we should start to see a more pronounced southerly flow. This will act to increase humidity and cloud cover and, eventually should push up our rain chances. It is too early to say anything definitive about whether it will rain on Halloween, but it is certainly a possibility at this point.

In brief: Fall arrived this weekend, and our weather was certainly gorgeous. Now that we’ve taken the sting out of summer, is there anything to be done about our growing need for rainfall?

A dry fall

For much of the Houston region it has been a dry end of summer and start to fall. This is particularly the case for regions south and east of Houston, where meaningful precipitation has been extremely scarce. Over the last 60 days, since mid-August, most of this area has received well below 50 percent of its normal rainfall, and the last 30 days have seen almost nothing. Meanwhile some locations in the greater Houston region, such as the western part of the metro area, are probably thinking, what is this guy talking about it?

As a result of this, despite the shorter days, we have seen drought return to Houston. The majority of Brazoria county, as well as chunks of Liberty and Chambers counties, have sunk into a severe drought. Much of the rest of the metro Houston area has reached a moderate drought level. With virtually no rain expected over at least the next 10 days, I fear we could see more of Houston reach ‘severe’ drought status.

An El Niño weather pattern is supposed to bring generally wetter conditions across Texas during the winter months, and we are likely to end up needing it given the state of our soils heading toward November.

Monday

Skies will be partly sunny today, with winds shifting to come from the east. Expect highs in the upper 70s for the most part. Lows tonight will be in the mid-60s. With dewpoints hovering in the 50s, the air will continue to feel pleasantly dry outside.

Tuesday

Skies should be partly to mostly sunny, with highs in the vicinity of 80 degrees. It may feel slightly more humid, and overnight lows probably will only drop into the mid-60s.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

As the flow turns more northeasterly we should see moderately warm days, in the 80s, with slightly cooler nights. Lows are to be determined, but I expect most of the region to drop down to around 60 degrees each night during this period. Skies will be mostly sunny.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend forecast looks warm-ish, with highs likely in the mid- to upper-80s, with mostly sunny skies. Nights should fall into the lower 60s. Dewpoints remain comfortable, such that Houston’s air is unlikely to feel too dry or too humid.

Next week

This pattern should continue into next week, after which time we may start to see a little more humidity. As for rain, which we discussed above, chances look minimal for the next week at least. Perhaps the next time to hope for something is the weekend after next; right around or just after Halloween. We shall see.

In brief: In today’s post I make a bold prediction about Houston’s weather for the rest of the year. Also, temperatures continue to trend downward for the weekend, as the cold front looks even more robust. But do be mindful of strong winds on Friday afternoon, evening, and overnight.

So long, 90s?

Culturally, the 90s are probably my favorite decade: Super Nintendo, burning CDs, Seinfeld, the last decade before social media and screens began to take over, the end of the Cold War, and so much more. It felt like a much simpler time. But I digress—the 90s are great for a decade, but not so much for temperatures. And we’ve had a lot of them this year, 128 days and counting in Houston. Now that we’re in mid-October, shouldn’t we be saying sayonara to the 90s?

We should, and hopefully we will. I think there’s a decent chance that today is the final 90-degree day in Houston for the calendar year 2026. I cannot make this a locked-in guarantee. Houston has been known to reach highs of 90 degrees all the way through October. But we’re only a couple of weeks from that date, and we are running out of opportunities.

We are going to cool down very nicely this weekend, and at least some lingering effects from the front will last into early next week. Then we’re going to have a period from about Wednesday into next weekend when I think there’s a chance for us to reach the upper 80s, or possibly 90 degrees. But the modeling is far from certain about this, and I believe it’s just as likely that we stay comfortably cooler than that. So my bold and hopeful prediction is that after today, we’re done with 90s in Houston.

Thursday

As noted above, we’ve got one more warm-to-hot day today, with partly sunny skies and highs in the vicinity of 90 degrees. It will be fairly humid, but not as oppressively so as earlier in the week. There is about a 10 percent chance of a stray shower passing over, but it would be brief. Lows tonight will again drop to around 70 degrees in Houston.

Friday

We’ll start out somewhat muggy, but by around 6 to 9 am we are going to see winds shift to come from the north pretty sharply. This is likely to be a truly in-your-face front with the abrupt wind shift. Humidity will drop some initially, and then much drier air will follow during the early afternoon hours. I think it is possible that we’ll see some scattered showers along and ahead of the front, but probably nothing too serious. In terms of highs, I expect much of Houston to remain in the 70s on Friday, and some inland areas might even fall into the 60s during the afternoon hours. (Yeah, folks, it’s quite a front in terms of temperatures).

A notable thing to look out for is gusty winds. I’ve been talking about these for most of the week, but we could see gusts on Friday afternoon and Friday evening up to about 35 to 40 mph in Houston, with even higher gusts along the coastline later on. Lows on Friday night also look to be lower than previously expected, probably in the lower 50s for much of the region away from the immediate coast.

Saturday

It’s going to start out chilly, especially with northerly winds continuing to blow through the morning hours at about 15 mph, gusting up to 25 mph. For some inland areas, with the winds, it could briefly “feel” like temperatures in the 40s on Saturday morning. However winds should start to slacken during the afternoon hours. Look for highs of around 70 degrees, with sunny skies. As winds die down, we should see an even cooler night on Saturday, with lows in neighborhood of 50 degrees in Houston, and potentially the upper 40s for some inland areas.

Sunday

This will be another sunny day, but with lower winds. Expect highs in the mid-70s and low humidity. This will be one of the 10 finest weather days of the year in Houston. Enjoy!

Next week

This front now appears to have more sticking power than thought, so we’re not going to warm up too abruptly next week. Highs on Monday will be in the upper 70s, and I think most of next week should bring highs in the low- to mid-80s. Lows will be in the 60s. There will be a smattering of rain chances, but nothing I can point to with any confidence.