Eric Berger

Good morning. The Houston region should see a quiet day today, with scattered showers, before more widespread rain chances return on Friday and Saturday. Overall accumulations, however, should generally remain in the 1 to 4 inch total through Saturday. We therefore are dropping the use of our flood scale as the overall threat diminishes further. It is worth noting that a bit to our east, particularly the Beaumont and Port Arthur areas, could see a bit heavier rainfall this weekend. They were hit much harder earlier this week.

I also want to call attention to a special discussion this afternoon at 3 pm CT, which you can register for here. As part of an event produced by the South Main Alliance, Leroy “Shafe” Shafer, the longtime chief operating officer of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, will interview me. We’ll talk about the origins of Space City Weather, the upcoming hurricane season, and the writing of my book on the early years of SpaceX, Liftoff. The event is free!

Thursday

Our radar is blessedly clear this morning, and we expect only isolated to scattered showers later today. It is possible that the sunshine may peek through for a bit this afternoon or early evening, but skies should remain mostly cloudy. Highs will climb into the low 80s this afternoon, with overnight lows in the low 70s.

Friday

Rainfall should become more widespread beginning early Friday morning, and we’ll see fairly high chances all day. However, these storms should be fairly fast moving, and most areas will likely see less than 1 inch of rain. Highs will be around 80 degrees with mostly cloudy skies. Rain chances will slacken a bit overnight.

Saturday

One final burst of moisture arrives on Saturday, and in the upcoming period this should be the day when our region has its best rain chances. Much of Houston could see around 0.5 to 1.5 inches of rain on Saturday, give or take, with mostly cloudy skies and highs around 80 degrees. This won’t be great for outdoor activities, but at least we do not anticipate any significant flooding from these rains.

Sunday

Rain chances aren’t going to entirely go away on Sunday, but they should drop back quite a bit. We also expect to see at least a modest amount of sunshine during the afternoon hours, although I’m not sure it’s going to get full blown sunny on us. Highs will probably reach the low 80s.

Next week

Skies will turn partly, and then probably mostly sunny next week. This will allow high temperatures to climb into the mid-, or possibly upper-80s by the end of the week. Some slight rain chances will remain each day, but any showers that develop look to be fairly scattered in nature. It’s late May, so you should know better than to inquire about future cold fronts.

Good afternoon. The atmosphere has behaved itself so far today, with most of the area seeing one-half inch of rainfall, or less, since sunrise. We expect this trend to continue today and tonight. Yes, rain will be possible. No, it should not be extreme.

Overall, we think the threat of a big ticket rainfall event—which will lead to significant flooding—is diminishing this week. Therefore we are lowering out Space City Weather Flood Scale alert level to Stage 1. This means we can mostly expect nuisance street flooding over the next couple of days.

That’s not to say the rain is over.

Showers will continue to be possible along the coast this afternoon and tonight. On Thursday, we expect showers to be more scattered in nature, offering a nice reprieve. But beginning Thursday night we could see redevelopment of more widespread activity, and then the potential for moderate or even heavy briefly rainfall on Friday and into Saturday morning. Overall accumulations will likely be in the neighborhood of 1 to 3 inches of rainfall, with higher isolated amounts possible south of Interstate 10, closer to the coast, and east of Houston. Even though the region’s soils are saturated, we just don’t see a huge threat to the metro area. Obviously, we’ll be tracking things closely until the risk is over.

Unless there’s a change in our thinking, we’ll next update on Thursday morning.

A ferocious line of storms roared through Houston on Tuesday night, producing a biblical amount of lightning, threatening with tornadoes, throwing down some hail, and dropping buckets of rain. But there was a silver lining—a silver lining that if I’m being honest I did not fully anticipate—with these storms. Rather than slowing to a crawl as they moved into Houston, these storms kept right on trucking. Yes, the storms produced intense rainfall rates as high as 4 inches per hour, but as the heaviest bands of rainfall kept moving on there simply was not enough time for serious flooding.

Can I get an amen?

Seriously, I’m not sure I’ve ever been so happy to observe a radar absolutely lit up by bright red hues, indicating intense rainfall rates, as I was tonight. Because those storms kept on moving through. Instead of slow-moving storms that trained over our areas, we got a freight train. Choo-choo!

If I sound a bit loopy tonight it’s because I’m just so tired of writing about horrendous floods in Houston. Tax Day floods. Memorial Day floods. Halloween floods. Hurricane Harvey. Tropical Storm Imelda. Beta. It goes on, and on, and on. So tonight it feels amazing to write that Houston did not flood. I can write that this line of storms, which could have been very, very bad for the region, was by-and-large not bad. We had an hour of fire and brimstone, most everyone got 1 to 3 inches of rain, and then this system moved along.

So what comes next? The rainfall and threat of severe storms is moving to the east, and offshore, for the night. Some light to moderate rainfall may persist across Houston during the overnight hours, but this will not pose a significant flooding threat. Going to work, school, or other activities on Wednesday morning should be fine.

It looks as though we may see some additional rounds of showers and thunderstorms coming through later on Wednesday, after the atmosphere has a chance to recharge, and then again on Thursday. Given that I still have some slight concerns about areas just east of Houston on Thursday, I’m going to leave our flood scale alert at Stage 2 for now. But given more data by the morning we may be able to ratchet that back a bit. Matt will have an update by around 7 am or before on Wednesday.

Ok everyone, take a deep breath. The greater Houston region has experienced a nice reprieve from heavy rainfall today. That’s the good news. The bad news is that our atmosphere has recharged, and we are about to experience the worst of this potential flooding evening tonight and on Wednesday. The timing of all this remains in flux, but what follows is our best assessment for now.

Tuesday night

A pretty serious block of showers and thunderstorms are massing just to the west of Houston this afternoon, and we expect them to move toward our region this evening and during the overnight hours. These storms are being juiced by a slow-moving upper-level low pressure system, and they will have plenty of moisture to work with tonight.

We think most of Houston and the surrounding counties will see 2 to 5 inches of rainfall between now and sunrise on Wednesday, with higher isolated totals. These storms will be capable of producing intense rainfall rates above 2 inches per hour, which will quickly back up streets. Almost certainly some part of our region will see 10 inches of rainfall, or more, during the overnight hours. For now we are maintaining a Stage 2 flood alert, but this threat may need to be adjusted upward later this evening.

Although rainfall is the primary threat, some of these thunderstorms may bring severe weather as well. The National Weather Service has published a tornado warning that will remain in effect for the western half of our region until at least 9 pm CT tonight.

Wednesday

It looks like tonight’s storms may work over the atmosphere, and if this happens we would expect to see a break in storms on Wednesday morning, possibly lasting into the afternoon hours. After this point it’s really difficult to say what will happen with confidence, but I think it’s reasonable to expect another round of storms Wednesday evening or during the overnight hours. Where this sets up, and whether it’s as intense as Tuesday night, is something I just don’t really feel comfortable predicting.

Thursday and beyond

We think the focus of these storms will begin to swing eastward on Thursday. For the overall event, most areas will probably see an additional 4 to 8 inches of rainfall, on average, from now through Thursday. This means some areas will see more, and it is in those locations we are most concerned about flooding.

The map below shows NOAA’s best guess for rain accumulation totals from now through Thursday night, but this should not be taken as gospel.

Matt and I will be continuing to work this event, and will update again by around 10pm CT Tuesday night.