Eric Berger

Good morning. Very heavy rains have fallen overnight along a nearly stationary boundary that is anchored across west Houston. As a result, as much as 5 to 7 inches of rainfall have come down near Katy and the Addicks and Barker reservoirs. A flash flood warning is in effect for these areas through 10 a.m. Thursday morning, and you can expect widespread street flooding.

Thursday

The heavy rainfall over the western part of the region should wane somewhat during the daytime hours. However, the overall pattern facing the region remains more or less the same. Very high atmospheric moisture levels coupled with an unstable atmosphere will continue to support heavy rainfall for the next day or two.

While we think there may be something of a break in storms today, another atmospheric disturbance should move into the area tonight, bringing another healthy chance of widespread showers and thunderstorms. It seems unlikely that any areas will see 7 inches more on Thursday night, but this pattern has already shown what it is capable of. Aside from rain chances today, mostly cloudy skies will limit highs in the mid-80s, with a light south wind.

Friday

By Friday the threat of heavy rainfall should be declining—although it is not going to go entirely away. The driver of this will be a slowly drying air mass that should help to set an upper limit on rainfall rates. Nevertheless, we still expect fairly widespread moderate showers and thunderstorms on Friday, with cloudy skies and highs in the mid-80s.

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Good morning. Houston’s wet pattern will continue through the work week, although the most organized heavy rainfall should wind down over the course of this morning after a storm system pushes through the area. Please take care if you have cause to be out and about this morning before conditions should improve later today.

Wednesday

Moisture continues to move in from the Gulf, combining with an upper-level storm system to bring heavy rains to the metro area on Wednesday morning. The heaviest rains are generally to the south of the city now, and this mess should slowly begin to slide generally eastward, exiting the area entirely by 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. In the meantime, these storms should put a manageable 1 to 3 inches of rain down for most of the metro area—with the heaviest rains coming and lingering near the coast.

Although this will end our Stage 1 flood event, the rain won’t be over. Even as the storm system rotates away from Houston, additional moisture will be pulled inland and more showers will likely develop this afternoon. We’re not sure about this, because the atmosphere should be somewhat stabilized after this morning. In any case, storms this afternoon should be less organized. Highs today will likely only reach the mid-80s with cloud cover and rain.

Thursday

Healthy rain chances continue on Thursday, with a higher likelihood of moderate-to-heavy rain along the coast where moisture levels should be highest. Accumulations should be less than on Wednesday, however. Temperatures should remain in the upper 80s for most with cloudy skies.

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Good afternoon. We’re continuing to monitor the threat of heavy rainfall during the overnight hours as a front sags into the Houston area, and stalls. And at this point, we believe this threat warrants a Stage 1 alert on the Space City Weather Flood Scale. However, we’re following the situation closely, and it may require an upgrade to Stage 2 this evening.

In anticipation of this threat, the National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for the entire metro Houston area, in effect from 7 p.m. tonight through 7 a.m. Wednesday morning. In terms of overall accumulations, they are forecasting widespread totals of two to four inches of rain through tomorrow morning, with isolated areas of six to eight inches possible. This is reasonable. However, these kinds of potentially heavy rainfall events, with a slow-moving system and very high levels of atmospheric moisture, are notoriously hard to predict.

At this time we do not have much confidence in where the rains will be heaviest—it could be anywhere from south of the city to the northeast. The good news is that we expect the storms to begin to clear the area by around sunrise, or shortly thereafter. By then the atmosphere will probably be pretty worked over, and we think storm coverage should be less during the daytime on Wednesday.

Good morning. While we anticipated widespread rainfall on Monday, the intensity of the storms that developed over central Houston—in one area near downtown rainfall rates briefly exceeded a rate of 4 inches per hour—was not expected. Overall it’s a good reminder of the potential of heavy rainfall from the kinds of moist air we can see during summertime along the Gulf Coast. The potential for heavy rainfall will continue through Thursday, after which it should slacken some due to the arrival of Saharan dust.

Tuesday

We have all of the ingredients needed for heavy rainfall today, but we think storms will develop a little bit later in the day than on Monday. The first thing we’re watching is a complex of thunderstorms currently near the I-35 corridor that will move east into the Houston region later today. We expect this to weaken. Later this morning, showers should develop offshore, and move inland. And finally, tonight, a weak front will sag into Houston. Sadly this won’t bring any cooling, but it will serve as a focus for additional storm development.

Some models show this front moving slowly, and then hanging up along the coast. This could lead to a scenario where coastal counties pick up a fair amount of rain tonight and into Wednesday morning. Widespread rain totals for today and tonight will probably be about 1 to 3 inches for most of the area, but some isolated areas—most likely between Interstate 69 and the coast—may pick up as much as 5 additional inches of rain.

Wednesday

After whatever mess of storms that develops overnight weakens or moves off by around sunrise on Wednesday, it is possible that any new development later in the day will be more scattered in nature due to a worked-over atmosphere. Mostly cloudy skies should continue to keep temperatures in the upper 80s.

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