Eric Berger

Summary: In this post we discuss the very wet start to 2024 in Houston. As for the forecast, our skies will turn sunnier later today, and remain so for a few days, with cooler nights. We’ll then warm up through Saturday, with a smattering of rain chances to end the work week, and better odds with a front later this weekend.

Winter rains

We are now a little more than a month into the new year, and I don’t know about anyone else, but my backyard is a swamp. Through this weekend, Houston’s official station at Bush Intercontinental Airport has recorded 10.50 inches of rainfall. In the city’s records, which date back more than 140 years, we have only surpassed that total on two different occasions: 1891 (13.12″) and 1991 (11.73″).

Matt put together the chart above which shows accumulated rainfall, by day, for each year in Houston since 1950. (The chart only includes data for the last 75 years for the sake of visibility). This year is shown in dark black. The year which sticks out like a sore thumb, of course, is 2017 when we were drenched by Hurricane Harvey.

This year’s rainfall is part of a fairly typical pattern for an El Niño winter, which tends to cause wetter conditions due to the placement of the jet stream. The pattern has produced an enormous amount of rainfall over California in particular this winter, which Matt has explained more deeply on The Eyewall.

Monday

Winds are continuing to blow across the metro area, with gusts up to 30 mph in some areas during the last hour. This northerly flow should start to ease a bit later this afternoon before the winds die down tonight. A few light showers are falling this morning, but they should end soon. With clearing skies this afternoon, highs should reach the mid-60s. Low temperatures tonight will drop into the mid-40s in Houston, with cooler conditions for areas further inland.

Tuesday

This will be a fine, sunny day. Expect light winds, low humidity, and highs in the mid- to upper-60s. Lows on Tuesday night will drop into the mid-40s.

Wednesday

With the return of an the onshore flow on Tuesday night, we’ll see a fairly pronounced southerly breeze on Wednesday. This should bring increasing cloud cover during the afternoon hours, with highs topping out at around 70 degrees. Lows on Wednesday night will only drop to around 60 degrees.

Thursday and Friday

The combination of increasing moisture in the atmosphere and a front stalling north of Houston should result in some cloudy and warmer days to end the work week. I think highs will get into the mid-70s, with fairly humid air. Some scattered showers are possible, although I would peg daily chances only at about 30 percent, with slight accumulations.

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday should be warm again, with highs perhaps in the mid-70s, and cloudy skies. After that I don’t have great confidence in the details. At some point a front is likely to move through with some attendant rain showers. My best guess for the timing of this is Sunday morning, but that’s somewhat of a crapshoot at this point. Sunday’s temperatures will be dependent on the timing of the front, so they could be in the 60s or the 70s. I don’t anticipate an enormous amount of rain with the front, perhaps something on the order of a few tenths of an inch in the Houston metro area with the possibility of higher totals north of the city. We’ll see.

Next week

Next week looks cooler, with highs in the 60s, and lows perhaps in the 40s or 50s. But after that I don’t have much confidence in whether we’re dry, or some showers hang around early in the week. We’ll have to iron that out in a future forecast.

Summary: After a few days of gorgeous weather Houston’s pattern has begun to change with a more southerly flow. By late Friday night this is likely to produce some showers and thunderstorms, which will likely peak in activity on Saturday morning. Then we should see sunny and cooler weather through the middle of next week.

I also want to thank everyone for their kind words about our sponsorship agreement with Reliant, and the slight tweaks in our site design. Essentially we’ve changed the font for headlines, and updated the header image at the top of the page. For those who don’t know, I essentially created Space City Weather on a Friday night in October 2015, in a few hours, ahead of some storms. So the (now dated) header image was rushed. I grabbed a NASA image of the Space Shuttle carrier aircraft flying over the Houston skyline, cropped it, added some text, and called it done. The new design looks more professional and updates the “space” iconography to the International Space Station. I loved the Shuttle, but it did retire 12 years ago. Our friends and neighbors are flying on the station at this very moment, so it embodies Space City.

Thursday

After some patchy fog lifts this morning we’re going to see a partly sunny day. Temperatures will again be mild, reaching about 70 degrees. As mentioned above, the winds will be from the south at 5 to 10 mph, and this will start to raise humidity levels a bit. But with dewpoints in the 50s it will still feel reasonably dry. Lows tonight will drop into the mid-50s.

Friday

Temperatures will again rise to around 70 degrees, or just above. Skies will be partly sunny. It will be a little more humid than Thursday, and a little more breezy. But still nice. While I can’t entirely rule out some light showers on Friday evening, I think the rain will hold off for the most part until after midnight. So any Friday evening activities you have look good to go at this point.

Saturday

An upper level disturbance, along with the next cold front, will begin affecting our weather early on Saturday. While we’re not fully in the realm of high resolution modeling yet, my sense is that we’ll see on-and off showers and thunderstorms overnight, with a line of storms pushing through some time on Saturday morning. After this line of storms we may see a few lingering showers into the afternoon hours.

How strong will the storms be? As there will be a fair amount of shear, I can see the potential for some damaging winds. The other concern is heavy rainfall. It still looks like most of the area will see 1 to 3 inches of rainfall, but the good news is that the storms are likely to be fairly progressive in moving from west to east. So I don’t see a whole lot of training. The potential for heavy rainfall is generally greater to the east of Houston.

Drier air will start to filter into Houston on Saturday afternoon, so we should see at least some partly sunny skies later in the day. Temperatures will likely be in the upper 60s. Lows on Saturday night will drop to around 50 degrees in Houston, with cooler conditions for outlying areas.

Sunday

Sunday looks sunny and pleasant, with highs in the upper 60s—but there’s a catch. We’re going to see an additional push of cooler and drier air, and this will result in a windy day, with gusts up to about 30 mph from the north. These winds will persist overnight, when temperatures drop into the 40s, and Monday morning.

Next week

We’ll see sunny and cooler conditions, with nights in the 40s, through the middle of the week. After that daytime temperatures will warm into the low 70s, probably, into the weekend. Conditions look mild throughout, with a slight chance of rain returning by next Saturday or Sunday.

Hi everyone. Matt and I are excited to announce a three-year extension of our long-running relationship with Reliant, which will extend their exclusive sponsorship through 2026. As some of you may recall, they came on board a few months before Hurricane Harvey in 2017, and we’ve never looked back. Houston is Reliant’s hometown, their president Elizabeth Killinger and their employees are avid SCW supporters, and they totally get what we’re about. (She and I filmed a video you should check out). This is great news for readers as well, because Reliant could not be a better partner to keep Space City Weather powered up for years to come.

Here’s why: 

Clean interface: Thanks to this sponsorship, we never have to run any intrusive advertising on this website. That means no autoplay video garbage. No pop-ups. No tracking. None of that nonsense. Instead, you’ll see tasteful branding on our pages and in our products, and the (very) occasional sponsor message that provides useful information on energy efficiency or new initiatives. Seriously, Reliant is an awesome, hands-off sponsor that lets us focus on what we do best.

No hype: Because of the nature of our agreement, we don’t feel pressured to chase clicks for the sake of chasing clicks. We are not getting paid for the traffic we generate. (Typically, online advertisers pay per impression on readers). This is why you sometimes see sensationalist content online. It sells. Anyway, we’re empowered to simply write what we think needs to be written, and nothing more. There will be some Mondays when we tell you to ignore the forecast for the rest of the week, and Reliant is fully supportive of that. 

Cool stuff: Thanks to our sponsorship, we’ve been able to do some pretty cool stuff. A recent example that comes to mind is hosting a Fall Day celebration the last two years. Reliant has entirely underwritten these events and organized them for us. We’ve also done some great giveaways, including four full air conditioning systems, Houston Astros tickets and jerseys and more. All of this is in partnership with Reliant and their team is behind it all. It brings an element of fun to the awesome community we’ve built here. 

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Summary: The forecast remains largely the same, as we’ll see gradually warming and generally mild weather through Friday. Beginning Friday evening, and lasting into Saturday afternoon, there will be an elevated chance of rain showers and thunderstorms as the next front passes through. This front will bring us cooler and drier air through the middle of next week.

Also, be sure and check back later this morning for an important site announcement!

Wednesday

Today will bring more mostly sunny, pleasant, and fine conditions. Expect highs of around 70 degrees with light westerly winds. The winds of change will begin to blow, if only slightly, tonight as they shift to come from the south. This will herald the beginnings of an onshore flow, but temperatures will still drop to nearly 50 degrees overnight.

Thursday

Expect another nice day, with partly sunny skies and highs of around 70 degrees. The air will be a little bit more humid, but we’ll still be fairly dry. Winds will be a bit more pronounced from the south. Overnight lows will drop into the mid-50s.

Friday

Skies will be partly to mostly sunny, with highs in the mid-70s. I think rain chances will hold off during the daytime, and probably most of the evening as well. But some time on Friday night, perhaps after midnight, we’ll see showers and thunderstorms advance into the Houston metro area from the west.

Saturday

We’ll get a better handle on the details in the next day or two, but we can expect widespread showers through the morning hours and into the early afternoon. In terms of accumulations we’re looking at 1 to 3 inches, which is not a whole lot, but our grounds are still pretty wet from rains last week. Highs on Saturday should be about 70 degrees, with clearing skies likely during the afternoon hours. Lows will likely drop to around 50 degrees on Saturday night as humidity levels drop behind the front.

Sunday

This will be a colder and drier day with sunny skies. It does look windy, with gusts up to 30 mph from the north. Highs will top out in the 60s, with overnight lows dropping to around 50 degrees overnight.

Next week

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all look cooler with highs in the 60s and sunny skies. We should see the return of more clouds and warmer temperatures with highs in the 70s toward the end of next week. There’s no strong signal for rain after Saturday.