Eric Berger

Good morning, and I hope everyone has a great Fourth of July! In observance of the the holiday, today’s post will be fairly brief, with us returning to normal operations on Wednesday. As for the weather, our overall thinking on this week’s forecast has not changed too much. We’re heading toward a rainier pattern for the mid-week, followed by hotter and sunnier weather this weekend and next week.

Fourth of July

Skies will be partly sunny today, with highs in the mid-90s. We are starting to see the development of some showers off the Texas coast, in the Gulf of Mexico, at around sunrise. These will gradually transition inland today, with the bulk of showers and thunderstorms developing between late morning and late afternoon. Your chance of seeing rain is about 40 percent. The good news is that we generally expect these showers to clear out this evening, with partly cloudy skies and lows of around 80 degrees tonight. The viewing forecast for fireworks looks fine fine, if sweaty, as is customary in Houston.

Wednesday and Thursday

The details are still to be determined, but we’re looking at a pair of cloudy and cooler days, with highs likely only reaching about 90 degrees, give or take. Both days should see widespread showers and thunderstorms as tropical moisture pushes inland from the Gulf of Mexico, with lesser chances overnight. Look for accumulations, on average, of 0.5 to 1.5 inches, with the higher totals more prevalent toward the coast. This will be our coolest, and likely wettest weather for awhile for the foreseeable future.

Friday and beyond

Rain chances don’t go away on Friday and Saturday, but they begin to diminish as high pressure starts to build back over the area. Look for highs in the mid-90s to start out, pushing back into the upper-90s toward 100 degrees by the middle of next week.

See you tomorrow!

Before looking ahead to our weather in the days ahead, let’s briefly look back at June. The first 10 days of the month were relatively cool, with below normal temperatures and plenty of rainfall. Then our pattern dramatically shifted for the latter two thirds of the month, with highs generally in the upper 90s to 100 degrees, and extremely uncomfortable weather. Overall, with an average temperature of 85.1 degrees, this June tied 1980 for the sixth warmest of all time in Houston.

As we saw on Sunday afternoon and evening, the high pressure that dominated much of the last three weeks of our weather in June has moved off, allowing for slightly cooler weather and healthy rain chances. This pattern will persist for most of this week before high pressure starts to assert control again by next weekend.

Monday

High temperatures today will be about 95 degrees, which is hot, but not as hot as we’ve been. Skies will be partly sunny later this afternoon, with a mix of clouds and sunshine. Rain chances are probably about 40 percent, with the majority of showers developing near the coast this afternoon and then migrating inland. As we saw on Sunday, some thunderstorms are possible. Winds will be generally light, out of the south or southeast, at about 10 mph. Lows tonight will drop to around 80 degrees, or just below.

Tuesday

Conditions will be more or less the same for the Fourth of July, albeit with slightly better shower coverage. Let’s call it a 50 percent chance of rain. Fortunately, it does appear as though most of these showers will be diurnal in nature, assisted by daytime heating. This means that by the evening hours, and particularly after sunset, the majority of rain should be ending. This should allow for fireworks to proceed in most locations.

Wednesday and Thursday

Rain chances will peak during the middle of the week as low pressure and tropical moisture seep into the region from the Gulf of Mexico. A majority of the area should see showers and thunderstorms on these days, with accumulations generally averaging from 0.5 to 1.5 inches, although there will be plenty of outliers. Partly cloudy skies and rain-cooled air should moderate temperatures, keeping them in the low-90s for most of the area.

Friday

At some point the rain party is going to end, and that may happen as soon as Friday. Expect a partly sunny day with perhaps a 50 percent chance of showers. Highs will be in the mid-90s.

Saturday and Sunday

High pressure will start to build this weekend, and this should lead to a pair of mostly sunny days with highs in the mid- to upper-90s. Rain chances don’t look to be zero, but they’re probably not above 20 percent for both days. It’s going to depend on how quickly the high pressure builds over the area.

Next week

The majority of next week looks fairly hot as high pressure reigns, and should peak by Wednesday or Thursday. Heat advisories are likely to be necessary once again. Rain chances look accordingly low for much of the week.

Good morning. After Wednesday evening’s surprise storms, the majority of power outages reported due to damaging winds has dropped considerably as crews have worked overnight. The main area of concern remains in Montgomery County, where about 25,000 customers remain without power. Workers in those areas should have calm conditions as they continue to assess the situation and make repairs.

In the big picture, high pressure has edged slightly off to the west, and this will leave us open to the potential for another round of storms later today, and help keep temperatures slightly cooler. This reprieve will not last, however, and the majority of next week looks sunny and very, very hot.

Thursday

Mostly cloudy skies this morning should give way to partly sunny skies this afternoon, and most of the area should reach high temperatures in the mid-90s. That’s not the heat we’ve seen in recent days, but it’s still quite hot. The bigger question is whether we see the development of storms again later this afternoon and evening.

Conditions are marginally supportive of this, but the convective models don’t appear too excited about the potential for storms this evening. But they weren’t yesterday, either, with similar conditions in place. So what happens? I think we’ll see another storm system dropping out of the north this afternoon, but it probably will be weaker and make less of an impact than the one on Wednesday. Otherwise, expect low temperatures generally in the upper 70s.

Friday

High pressure begins to asset itself by Friday once again, so we’re going to see sunnier skies and highs in the mid- to upper-90s. After a lingering chance of showers early on Friday morning, the rain should be done. I’d peg overall chances at about 10 percent.

Saturday

Skies will be sunny again for the start of the weekend. Temperatures will not be super hot, but still in the upper 90s.

Sunday

The second half of the weekend does look super hot, with much of the region hitting 100 degrees. We may start to see excessive heat warnings again by this point.

Next week

The bad news is that most all of next week looks really hot, with highs staying up around 100 degrees. The state is simply going to bake as a really stout high pressure system establishes itself over Texas. Rain chances will be near zero. There remain some hints in the models that this pattern will finally start to break next weekend as the high retreats west, but as we’re talking about a forecast about 10 days from now my confidence is still somewhat low. But I’m hopeful.

Not going to lie, we did not expect this to happen this evening. A storm system that developed near the Dallas metro area on Wednesday afternoon moved quickly southward, pushing through the Houston metro area during the late evening hours. To our surprise, instead of weakening as this system pushed southward, it maintained its intensity.

As of this writing nearly 100,000 customers are without power in Montgomery County, and nearly 240,000 in Harris County. This is mostly due to the very strong wind gusts that accompanied these storms. An unconfirmed wind gust of 97 mph was recorded at Bush Intercontinental Airport as this line of storms passed through. To be clear, these winds were wholly unexpected even as of a few hours ago. I’d expect it to take at least a few hours for crew to get out and about and address fallen trees and other issues.

On the upside, the system dropped 0.5 to 1.0 inch of rain across much of the area, which was badly needed after 10 days of sunshine and hot weather. Temperatures have also dropped below 75 degrees across most of Houston, a place they’ve not been in more than a week. I realize that is no small comfort if the power dropped out at your house this evening.

In terms of the near-term forecast, once the storms pass through your area this evening, that’s probably it for tonight. Tomorrow morning looks fairly calm, and we’re probably looking at high temperatures in the low- to mid-90s. At this point I’d expect storm chances to start spinning back up in the afternoon hours, probably peaking again during the early evening. Hopefully we can nail that forecast a little better for you in tomorrow morning’s post.

Now I’m going to go back to my late dinner—of humble pie.