Eric Berger

Reliant is giving away two complete AC systems this summer

As this weekend so effectively demonstrated, summer has begun in Houston. And with July, August, and September around the corner, we’re facing several months of high heat. So, this is the perfect time to announce a pretty amazing contest that our friends at Reliant have come up with. They’re teaming up exclusively with Space City Weather to give away two complete, brand new air conditioning systems, with delivery and installation included, to our readers.

Yes, really. You can enter the contest here.

Reliant has sponsored this site for two full years now, and they really value what we’re doing to keep the greater Houston area informed about weather in a reliable and sensible way. To show our readers how important they are to Reliant, the company will award two air conditioners worth an estimated $11,000 each.

There really are no catches to this. Reliant just wants readers to know they appreciate Space City Weather, too, and to let them know about their AC Heat & Repair business.

A quick summary of the rules appears below, but for full rules and details of the contest, click here.

  • One AC unit will be given away to entrants between June 10–July 10
  • One AC unit will be given away to entrants between July 11–Aug 13
  • One winner will be chosen, randomly, at the end of each phase
  • Winners must be 18, and own a home in the greater Houston metro area
  • Your AC system must be 8 years or older

If your air conditioning system is not more than eight years old, or more importantly, if you know someone who could really benefit from a free, new AC system heading into the hottest time of the year, please share the contest link with them.

Update

We have our first winner! The winner of round one of Reliant’s AC giveaway—Farrah Gauge is thrilled. She told us: “What an incredible gift! Our current A/C is 18 years old and definitely on its way out so this could not have been better timing. You have gained a lifelong customer and advocate. Thank you Reliant!”

Heavy storms approaching Houston this evening

The National Weather Service has issued several watches and warnings for this afternoon and early evening as a fairly intense line of showers and thunderstorms is moving toward the Houston metro area from the west. These storms are capable of producing damaging wind gusts up to 60mph, and quarter-size hail.

Radar at 5:45pm CT Thursday. (kktv.com)

The severe weather has the potential to impact the entire metro area through around 8pm, but may linger across areas south of Interstate 10 until around midnight. The good news is they are moving rapidly from west to east, so individual storms should hopefully transition through the area quickly enough to avoid significant flooding problems.

Even so, it won’t be fun to be caught out in the storms, so please be weather-aware throughout this evening.

Storms possible again this evening, weekend still looks hot and sunny

Good morning. We have a couple of more days with the potential for storms across Houston, but we’re not expecting anything like the widespread, long-duration showers and thunderstorms we experienced on Wednesday. This weekend still looks quite hot and sunny, especially Sunday.

Thursday

A line of storms has fired up early this morning, but it is weakening as it moves toward the Houston metro area. Unfortunately, however, these thunderstorms could bring another quick 0.5-1 inch of rain to hard hit parts of southern Fort Bend, Matagorda, and Wharton counties. After these morning showers, the region should see a break until later this afternoon or early evening. By this point another line of storms moving out of central Texas should approach the Houston area.

NOAA severe storm outlook for Thuesday.

These storms may (hopefully) weaken again as they approach Houston, and NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center has highlighted an area well to the southwest of Houston as seeing an “enhanced” chance of storms. Even so, in Houston we’ll need to be on the lookout for potentially severe thunderstorms late this afternoon and into the evening hours—right around the evening commute. The biggest threat will be damaging winds and possibly some hail. Since the storms will move through fairly quickly, we don’t anticipate any significant flooding, despite our sodden soils. Highs today will be in the low 90s.

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Main threat of heavy rainfall over, but we have some Thursday concerns

It’s been long day of storms for parts of the metro area—fortunately for Houston pretty much everything has now moved east toward Beaumont and Port Arthur, or (better) southeast into the Gulf of Mexico. Houston should (mostly) have a quiet night as storms fire to the east. Before getting to the forecast for the next few days, I wanted to share the following map of rainfall totals during the last 24 hours. It neatly illustrates the challenges of forecasting tropical precipitation along the upper Texas coast.

24-hour rainfall totals through 5pm CT Wednesday. (Texas Mesonet)

A few notes: We actually pinpointed the Matagorda region as a potential hotspot during the overnight hours, and they along with Wharton County certainly bore the brunt of heavy rainfall with 14+ inches in a few locations. An area near College Station also picked up 5 inches of rain, as did Port Arthur. Closer to Houston, the eastern half of Harris County got the worst of it on Wednesday. I would also like to point out that fewer than 100 miles separates Wharton, where a foot of rain fell, from Conroe, where one-third of an inch fell. Welcome to meteorology.

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