Eric Berger

We start this morning with a quick celestial note: Earth reached perihelion at 6:38 pm CT on Tuesday night, meaning it reached the closest point to the Sun in its (slightly) elliptical orbit about our star. Ironically for northern hemisphere residents, though we are closer to the Sun during the winter by a few million miles, it is coldest time of the year. This is due, of course, to the tilt of the planet’s axis rather than proximity to the Sun. We’ll reach our furthest point from the Sun, aphelion, just after midnight on July 5 of this year.

Speaking of weather, rain showers on Tuesday evening and this morning overperformed a little, dropping 1 to 2 inches across most areas south of Interstate 10, with lesser amounts inland. We’ll now see a couple of drier days before rain showers return on Thursday night and Friday. All of this is working toward a gorgeous, winter-like weekend.

Wednesday

Skies will be mostly cloudy today, with highs pushing perhaps into the mid-50s. After some gusty conditions overnight as a coastal low pressure system passed by, winds will be lighter today, generally from the north, at 5 to 10 mph. Lows tonight will be fairly chilly, dropping into the low 40s in Houston, with cooler conditions further inland.

Thursday

This will be a mostly sunny day, probably, with highs in the upper 50s. Winds will be light, generally from the northeast. Another coastal low will be building offshore, but I think its associated rain showers will remain away from the Houston area during the daytime and evening hours. Lows on Thursday night will drop to around 50 degrees, with some light rain possible after midnight.

Friday

This looks to be a wet day, with most of the area picking up between 0.5 and 2.0 inches of rain between early Friday morning and the evening hours. Rain accumulations should be greatest closer to the coast, and the low pressure system. I think the worst of the weather, including stronger thunderstorms, will remain offshore. So I expect this to be a mostly mellow rain event, but it will definitely put a damper on any outdoor plans you have. Look for highs in the upper 50s, and lows Friday night dropping into the low to mid-40s.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend looks fine and mostly sunny. Highs on Saturday will be around 60 degrees, with overnight lows in the mid-40s, and then a bit warmer on Sunday, in the low 60s. It should be a great winter weekend for outdoor activities. Enjoy!

Next week

A chance of rain showers returns on Monday before a stronger front moves through. This will set the stage for colder mid-week weather, with the temperature likely bottoming out on Wednesday morning. A light freeze looks possible for inland areas, but we’ll have to see as we get closer. Temperatures then warm up again before another front likely cools us down for next weekend. If you’re weather watching for the Houston marathon on January 14, the forecast still looks chilly and dry, but the details remain fuzzy. Nevertheless I’m cautiously optimistic about running conditions!

Before we get too far into the new year, let’s take a quick look back at 2023. December finished with an average temperature of 57.3 degrees, which was 1.9 degrees above normal for the month. The coldest temperature of the month came on Dec. 11, when the low reached 33 degrees. As I noted last week, Houston did not record a single freeze during the calendar year. It has now been 372 days without a freezing temperature, and counting. We do have a chance at a freeze during the middle of next week, but that remains far from certain.

Last year was the warmest one on record in Houston, where meteorological records go back nearly a century and a half. If we look at the continental United States, we can see that large swathes of Texas, and a few other southern states, had their warmest year on record, or at least one of the five warmest on record. With El Niño persisting at least into the spring of this year, I would expect 2024 to rank very highly in terms of temperatures as well for Texas. But with the weather one can never be sure, and so we’ll be here every step of the way.

Tuesday

Rain is coming, but it should hold off for much of today. Skies should be mostly cloudy, with highs only topping out in the mid-50s for most. Winds will come from the east, at about 10 mph. Starting this afternoon we should see a mass of showers congeal to the west of Houston in conjunction with a low pressure system, and this will move through late this afternoon, evening, and during the overnight hours. Accumulations through Tuesday night should be on the order of 0.25 to 1.0 inch for most. With temperatures dropping into the low- to mid-40s it will be a cold and rainy night, but I don’t anticipate any particularly severe weather.

Wednesday

These rains will most likely end during the pre-dawn hours. After a cloudy start we could see some partial clearing of our skies by Wednesday afternoon, with high temperatures likely peaking only in the mid- to upper-50s. Lows on Wednesday night will probably be the coldest of the week, dropping into the upper 30s for inland areas, and low 40s in the urban core of Houston and closer to the coast.

Thursday

This looks to be a fine, sunny winter day with highs in the upper 50s.

Friday

Round two of rainfall arrives on Friday, with another low pressure system driving increased rain chances. The most likely time for rain will be during the daytime, and we likely will also see some thunderstorms. Will they be severe? Right now the overall dynamics do not favor this so much, so perhaps not. But I’ll be keeping an eye on it. In any case, I’d expect accumulations of 0.5 to 2 inches for most areas, so it could be a bit of messay day on the roadways.

Saturday and Sunday

After Friday’s mess clears out, the weekend looks sunny and cool. We’re talking highs of around 60 degrees on Saturday, lows around 40 degrees on Saturday night, and temperatures a bit warmer on Sunday, perhaps in the low 60s. Enjoy.

Next week

The forecast turns a bit fuzzy next week, but the broad outlines are clear. We’re going to see a brief warm-up on Monday, with temperatures in the low-70s, before some rainfall and a front arrives. This should pretty sharply cool things down for Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning we should be quite cold, perhaps even flirting with a freeze.

If you’re running the Houston marathon, our first peek at weather for Sunday, January 14, is necessarily blurry. But the most likely scenario is that some sort of reinforcing front pushes through ahead of the weekend, leading to a cold Sunday, perhaps starting in the 40s, and rising to the 50s. Certainly I can’t rule out rain showers, but at this point there’s no strong signal for it. I like it cold and dry, so this is an ideal forecast for a slow-goer like me. Such a far-out prediction is, of course, very speculative.

Happy New Year’s Eve! I’m just jumping in with a quick post this morning to highlight the possibility of poor seeing tonight due to fog and smoke. Unfortunately it could coincide with the start of the New Year, when people are coming home after festivities tonight.

The issue is this: Before the arrival of a cold front on Monday morning, we are going to see near ideal conditions for the formation of fog. On top of that we can expect to see smoke and particulate matter from New Year’s Eve fireworks in the air. This may create very poor visibility on roads tonight, especially after midnight, and most likely closer to the coast.

The latest outlook for wind speeds is just 1 to 5 mph tonight after midnight. In addition, there is likely to be a stout capping inversion in place, which will prevent air near the surface from rising and mixing. And finally, air temperatures will very nearly match dewpoints in the upper 50s after midnight, creating ideal conditions for the formation of fog. All of this could combine to form thick air with poor visibility. Please take this into consideration with your plans to be on roadways after midnight tonight, and drive with extra care.

As expected, a cold front will push through Houston on Monday morning, bringing northerly winds that will quickly disperse the fog and smoky air. However, this front is unlikely to reach the Houston metro area until around sunrise, give or take, on New Year’s Day. The holiday will be partly to mostly cloudy, with high temperatures in the 60s. We’ll be back with a full update on Tuesday, January 2nd.

Good morning. Lows have bottomed out in the upper 30s across most of Houston this morning, giving us cold but not freezing weather. The pattern we’ve been talking about for several days now will hold through the holiday weekend, with a warming trend through Sunday, followed by a cold front overnight leading to chillier conditions on New Year’s Day. Also, please check the end of today’s post for a note regarding some issues with our app and its display of current conditions.

Friday

Today will be sunny and cold, with high temperatures only reaching the mid-50s for most areas. Winds will be light, from the northwest, at perhaps 5 to 10 mph. With clear skies, low temperatures will again drop into the 30s tonight, to about the same level reached Thursday night. So most of the Houston region should again remain comfortably just above freezing.

Saturday

We’ll see the beginning of a bit of a warming trend, with highs reaching the mid-60s as winds turn to the west and then southwest. Skies remain sunny. Overnight lows will drop into the 40s.

New Year’s Eve

The year will end on a high note for temperatures, with mostly sunny skies and highs reaching around 70 degrees or just a tick above. The evening should be mild, in the 60s, leading up to the new year. There’s a slight chance, perhaps 10 or 20 percent, of some very light rain near or after midnight as a front approaches. The best chance for showers will be close to the coast. The front itself should move through the metro area after midnight.

New Year’s Day

This will be a mostly sunny day, with highs in the upper 50s or so. Winds will be noticeable from the north, perhaps gusting to 15 or 20 mph. Lows on Monday night will drop to around 40 degrees in Houston, with temperatures a bit cooler further inland.

Next week

Tuesday should be mostly sunny as well before rain chances increase during the evening and overnight hours as a trough of low pressure moves in. There’s still some fuzziness in the details, but I think most of the area will pick up 0.5 to 1 inch of rain through Wednesday morning. Temperatures remain on the chilly side throughout the week, with highs in the 50s, and lows generally dropping to 40 for most of next week. Some additional rain chances look to return Friday and Saturday.

Unless the forecast for early next week takes a sharp turn, with respect to rainfall totals, our next post will come on January 2 so that Matt and I can enjoy the holiday weekend with our families. We wish you all a safe, happy, and wonderful end to 2023, and start to 2024.

App note

You may have noticed that forecast data isn’t showing up in the Space City Weather app. That’s because the National Weather Service isn’t providing the feed the app relies on for forecasts. An error message indicates that data will return on Jan. 1.

However, we are getting current conditions info, and developer Hussain Abbasi tweaked the app after the NWS feed went south to make sure that shows up. Once the NWS feed returns to normal, so will our app.