Eric Berger

Good morning. A robust cold front will sweep into Houston tonight, bringing a line of showers and thunderstorms. This will be an in-your-face front, which in addition to the potential for storms will also bring gusty winds up to 40 or 45 mph—presumably enough wind to terrify a New York Yankee—and an almost immediate influx of drier air. The front will set the stage for a pleasant fall week. Halloween, too, looks pretty mild at this point.

On a related note, Sunday marked the seventh anniversary for Space City Weather. I’d like to thank the Astros for the win, which advances them to the World Series, and to all of you who have found the site and spread the word to others. Matt and I do appreciate it.

Monday

Today, ahead of the front, will be warm with temperatures in the mid-80s. Skies will be partly to mostly cloudy with southerly winds that at times gust to 20 or 25 mph. Expect a few, very scattered, light showers. The big changes won’t come until the arrival of the front. There remains some wiggle room in timing, but it will likely push into the College Station area before or around midnight, reach Katy and The Woodlands shortly after midnight, downtown Houston around 2 to 3 am, and push off the coast a couple of hours before sunrise.

In addition to thunder and lightning, these storms have the potential to produce strong straight-line winds, and maybe a tornado or two. Most areas probably won’t see severe weather, but it remains a possibility for all locations. In terms of rainfall, most areas will pick up between 0.25 and 1 inch of rain. Winds will blow out of the north at 15 to 20 mph after the front’s passage, with higher gusts. Temperatures should drop into the 50s for most areas by Tuesday morning.

Tuesday

Showers will end quickly with the front’s passage, so Tuesday should be a sunny, windy day. Expect highs in the low 70s. Winds should finally start to die down by around sunset, falling back to 5 to 10 mph. This should help drop temperatures down to around 50 degrees in Houston, with cooler conditions inland, and warmer weather along the coast.

Wednesday

Another clear, sunny, and fine day with plenty of dry air and highs probably in the upper 70s. Lows on Wednesday night will be a couple of degrees warmer than Tuesday night.

Thursday

As winds swing around to become more southerly, look for warmer and somewhat more humid conditions on Thursday, with a high near 80 degrees. Lows Thursday night will be in the 60s.

Friday

The good news is that these southerly winds will pump more moisture into the atmosphere, and this, in turn, will help amplify rain chances with another cold front later on Friday. The timing of the front is still somewhat in question, but right now I’d expect a healthy chance of showers and potentially thunderstorms on Friday as this front moves through. Perhaps there will be an inch of rain, or so, with this front. We’ll see.

Saturday and Sunday

In the wake of the front, the weekend looks sunny and cool, with highs in the low 70s and nighttime temperatures probably in the 50 to 55 degree range.

Halloween

We’re now one week from Halloween, on Monday October 31st, and by then the winds will probably have started to come back onshore. Daytime temperatures accordingly should be somewhere in the upper 70s, and evening temperatures rather mild, perhaps in the upper-60s to 70 degrees. At this long range I cannot rule out a chance of rainfall, but right now chances look rather low, and any rainfall probably would be light. For now, my expectation is a mild evening with a tinge of humidity.

Good morning. The forecast for the Houston area remains more or less on track, with a warming trend through the weekend followed by some sort of front, and maybe some rain, on Monday or Tuesday of next week. I don’t want to make too much about the rain chances early next week—as some recent rain events have underperformed—but I am cautiously optimistic about what’s ahead.

Thursday

This will be our last cold morning of the week, with most of the area in the 40s. However change is afoot as high pressure moves off to the southeast, and our northerly breezes are replaced by a southwesterly flow. As a result highs today will be quite a bit warmer, reaching the low 80s, beneath mostly sunny skies. Winds will be out of the southwest at 5 to 10 mph. Lows tonight will drop to around 60 degrees in the city of Houston, with cooler conditions further inland.

Friday

A warmer day still, with highs in the mid-80s beneath mostly sunny skies. Overnight lows will only drop into the mid-60s. There will still be a modicum of drier air, but it will gradually be blown away.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend still looks warm, with highs in the mid-80s, and for some inland locations possibly the upper 80s, to go along with partly to mostly sunny skies. Humidity levels will be on the rise, but we’re not going back to summertime humidity. Overnight lows are unlikely to drop out of the 70s. Rain chances are not zero this weekend, but they’re probably on the order of 10 percent. So near enough for most purposes.

Next week

The big uncertainty in the forecast concerns the details of what happens next week. There remains a pretty large discrepancy in terms of the timing of the front, and that is important for determining our rain chances. Essentially, a Pacific Hurricane will be moving into Mexico this weekend, and it will push a large amount of moisture into Texas on Monday. If the front makes it through on Monday night or early Tuesday, it will synch up with this moisture and produce a decent amount of rainfall, perhaps 1 to 2 inches.

However, if the front is later on Tuesday or Tuesday night, it might miss this slug of moisture, and our rain chances and potential accumulations will be less.

Broadly speaking, most of next week and weekend do look cooler as not only are we getting some sort of initial front, but a secondary push of cooler air is expected later next week. So probably we’re looking at an extended period of highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s and 60s. It should be rather fall-like and nice if it all comes together.

Good morning. Temperatures have generally fallen into the low to mid-40s across much of Houston this morning, with a few colder spots such as the interior of Montgomery County—upper 30s—and a few warmer ones along the coast where lows remain in the low 50s. This will be the coldest morning of the week, but we’ll have one more chilly night before we warm up for the weekend. Next week’s forecast still looks a bit messy, but my expectation is for another front with some rainfall.

Wednesday

Today will be sunny again, with highs in the upper 60s. Winds will be out of the north at 5 to 10 mph, before turning more southerly later today or tonight. Expect one more chilly night, with lows a couple of degrees warmer than Tuesday night. So again, most of the area should drop into the 40s away from the coast.

Thursday and Friday

As the onshore flow gets going, we’ll start to see a gradual rise in humidity levels, but Thursday should still see pretty dry air. Look for sunny skies and highs in the low 80s, with moderate southerly winds. Lows Thursday night will drop to around 60 degrees. Friday will be warmer, with sunny skies and highs in the mid-80s.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend looks pretty warm, and it will feel especially so after the cooler weather preceding it. Look for mostly sunny skies and highs in the mid- to upper-80s. Overnight lows will generally drop into the upper 60s. Humidity will be back, it it won’t be full-on summertime humidity. Days will be fairly breezy, with southerly winds likely gusting to 15 to 20 mph.

Next week

We’ll be watching a few things next week including a large trough of low pressure in the atmosphere moving across the plains along with a cold front, and a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean that could transport atmospheric moisture across Mexico and into Texas. While the big picture seems clear the details of the interaction between these weather systems over our area, as of yet, are not.

The bottom line is that I think we can expect to start to see more clouds by Sunday night or Monday, and an increase in rain chances on Monday or Monday night. The front itself will probably arrive on Tuesday or Tuesday night. Alas, how much rain we get, and how much colder and drier air moves in behind the front, remains very much uncertain. My general expectation would be on the order of half an inch of rain and nights in the 50s, but I don’t feel overly confident in that. Sometimes with these kinds of fall-like patterns we see quite a bit of rain, but so far there’s no big signal for that in the models. We shall see.

Temperatures have generally fallen into the low-50s across much of Houston this morning, with plenty of dry air. Brisk northerly winds bringing in more dry and cool air today will set the stage for the region’s coldest night in at least six months, and maybe seven. The forecast low at Bush Intercontinental Airport for Wednesday morning is 43 degrees. The last time it got that cold here was:

• April 9: 44 degrees
• March 25: 43 degrees
• March 13: 32 degrees

So we are guaranteed to have our coldest night since at least April 9 tonight, and there’s a good chance it will be our coldest night since late March or even earlier. There is no chance, of course, that we’re going to see freezing temperatures tonight anywhere near the Houston metro area.

Tuesday

It will be slow to warm today, with winds out of the north at 10 to 15 mph providing a chilly breeze all day. Skies will be sunny, with highs generally in the upper 60s. As the sun sets tonight, temperatures will drop accordingly. Most of the metro area will be in the 40s, with the immediate coast in the low 50s, and some far inland areas north and east of Houston dropping into the upper 30s.

Wednesday

A day a lot like Tuesday, albeit with slightly lower winds shifting to come out of the northeast. Lows on Wednesday night should be a degree or three warmer than Tuesday night.

Thursday and Friday

As winds shift to come from a more southerly direction, we’ll see a warming trend with sunny skies and highs in the low 80s. Overnight temperatures may drop into the 50s on Thursday night, but by Friday night they’ll probably remain in the low 60s.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend looks sunny and warm, with highs in the mid-80s, and nights in the 60s. While humidity returns, I think dewpoints will be under control enough such that it won’t be summer-sticky out there.

Next week

There is a fair amount of uncertainty about our weather next week. By late Sunday or Monday it’s possible that an atmospheric disturbance could spark some showers, or we could continue to see mostly sunny skies and warm weather. Then, by the middle of next week, there is a fair amount of model support for a strong-ish cold front to move in, with some pretty decent rain chances. But that is far enough into the future for our confidence to be fairly low. So … stay tuned. Maybe we’ll have a little bit more clarity by tomorrow.