Eric Berger

Temperatures have fallen nicely this morning, generally into the upper 50s and low 60s for inland areas, and mid- to upper-60s closer to the coast. A pre-sunrise step outside felt entirely refreshing after our five months of summer, and truth be told we have even cooler weather on the way. A front that should reach the metro area is already bringing snow to the Texas Panhandle. It won’t get that cold here, of course.

Friday

I hope you enjoyed Thursday, because we’ve got a similar day on tap for Friday, with splendiferous highs in the low 80s, mostly sunny skies, and relatively low humidity. Alas, dewpoints will be on the rise later today as the onshore flow returns, and we’ll be looking at temperatures about 5 degrees warmer tonight, with a corresponding rise in humidity overnight. Our first taste of fall may have been fleeting this year, but we’ll have more of a feast in a few days.

Saturday

This should be a reasonably nice day, with high temperatures in the mid-80s and partly sunny skies. Southerly winds will continue, kicking up humidity levels. We can’t rule out some scattered showers later in the day.

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The temperature at Bush Intercontinental Airport fell to 64 degrees this morning, which semi-officially means that “fall” has arrived in Houston. According to our records, this is the second-latest date on which a 65-degree or cooler night has come to Houston in the months of September or October. The only later date came back in 1904, on October 13th.

Despite the long wait, we can now look ahead to very fine weather in the coming days, so let’s get right to it.

Thursday and Friday

Hello, fall. We’ll have two sunny days, with high temperatures around 80 degrees. Thursday night into Friday morning should actually be a couple of degrees cooler than this morning, but Friday night will be a smidge warmer as we begin to feel the rumblings of the onshore flow.

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We’ve talked about the late start to autumn this year in Houston, and we’re going to come very close to the latest start of fall on record. As a quick reminder, we’re defining “fall” as the first temperature of 65 degrees, or below, on or after Sept. 1. If we look at the data for the city, which goes all the way back to 1889, we can see how late we are this year in reaching this temperature, which denotes the arrival of the first decently strong “fall” front.

Today is October 9. Note that since the official weather monitoring station was moved to Bush Intercontinental Airport in 1969, the average date of “fall” was September 16th, and this trend line has been flat. The latest beginning of “fall” for this site came in 2005, on Oct. 7. We passed that a couple of days ago. The latest ever start to fall dates all the way back to 1904, when the downtown weather station didn’t measure a 65-degree night, or cooler, until Oct. 13. We’ll come close to that this year. But will be break it? Probably not.

Tuesday

We’re going to have one more sloppy humid day before some drier air arrives. Mostly cloudy skies should keep temperatures in the upper 80s, with some scattered showers and thunderstorms like the region saw Monday. While some of these storms could produce briefly heavy rain, we don’t expect them to persist for too long.

We’ve also seen might higher water levels along the coast during the last day or so; this is due to stronger lunar tides, persistent southerly winds, and waves from the distant Hurricane Michael. The effects of this should ease by Wednesday morning, with the passage of a cool front and wind shift. A coastal flood advisory remains in effect until that time.

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