December’s monthly sponsor

A new month means a new sponsor for Space City Weather, and I’m pleased to announce that Harmony Strings will support the site in December.

(Harmony Strings)
(Harmony Strings)

Thanks to their generous support we can provide all of our weather content for free, and with minimal advertisement, for the entire month of December. Here’s a little bit more about their business:

Harmony Strings is a professional string quartet in Houston, and the recipient of 17 industry awards including TheKnot’s Hall of Fame, TheKnot’s Best of Weddings, & WeddingWire’s Couple’s Choice Awards. Our multi-award winning string quartet performs classical & contemporary music for corporate events, holiday parties, galas, & everything in between!  Although we enjoy each and every event (isn’t variety the spice of life?), our specialty and our passion is weddings!  We know that your wedding is more than just a special occasion.  It’s the day you will finally marry the person you love!!  We know how much this day means to you, and we are always delighted and honored to be a part of such a beautiful celebration.  Whether your wedding is a lavish affair or an intimate ceremony, you can count on Harmony Strings to perform the music you love.  We invite you to listen to 25 contemporary & classical recordings of our Quartet, Trio, & Duo on our website.  Our calendar quickly fills up months (sometimes years) in advance, so request a quote for your event today!

The advantage of the sponsorship model is that we are under no pressure to generate web traffic for the sake of web traffic—so there’s no hype, no click bait and no nonsense. All we’ll do is continue to make the best possible forecasts we can make.

Houston: From very, very dry to very, very wet in two days

Good morning. It’s chilly out this morning, and very dry. How dry? Atmospheric moisture levels (shown below) are barely 10 percent of normal levels. Enjoy the calmer weather because big changes are coming for this weekend.

Today

Expect a cool and sunny day, with light northerly winds. Highs in the upper 60s and lows Thursday night should see temperatures three to five degrees warmer than Wednesday night.

gfs_pwat_anom_houston_2
Precipitable water levels are only about 10 to 30 percent of normal levels on this dry Thursday morning. (Weather Bell)

Friday

Friday will bring about a change as winds shift to out of the east, and they’ll become gusty as moisture moves inland. At the same time a large upper-level low pressure system will approach Texas from the west, and these ingredients will set the stage for a wet—and potentially very wet—weekend. Friday itself should be mostly cloudy, with high temperatures in the mid-60s, and a chance of light to moderate rain during the afternoon and evening hours.

(Space City Weather is brought to you by Harmony Strings this month)

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Houston’s mild weather about to turn a little wild—colder, wetter and then colder still

Houston has had a pretty dull fall, with warmer than normal temperatures, little rainfall, and almost no severe weather. But now things appear to be getting a little more interesting, with a wet weekend on tap, and significantly colder weather likely next week.

Today

After the region set record high temperatures on Tuesday (84 degrees, breaking a record from 2006), a cold front finally moved through last night. Temperatures this morning have fallen to around 60 degrees for most of the area, but the dewpoint has fallen off a cliff—the relative humidity this time on Tuesday was 100 percent, this morning it is 39 percent. Under mostly sunny skies temperatures today should rise to nearly 70 degrees.

Thursday

After lows start off in the low 40s north of Houston, and in the mid-40s for central parts of the city, we’ll have another spectacular day with a high near 70 degrees under fully sunny skies.

Friday

Friday will start off just a few degrees warmer than Thursday. But winds should pick up from offshore, returning moisture and setting the stage for what should be a wet, cool and gray weekend. Some rain is possible on Friday and Friday night, although it should be of the light to moderate variety. Highs will be near 70 degrees.

This rainfall accumulation forecast from NOAA seems a little too aggressive for me. (Weather Bell)
This rainfall accumulation forecast from NOAA seems a little too aggressive for me. (Weather Bell)

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Winter, it is coming

Yes, Houston set a record high temperature for today, with the mercury hitting 84 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport. And yes, a cold front is now working its way into Houston that will provide some relief from the heat and humidity for the rest of this week. But that is not what I’m talking about. For this post I am referring to actual winter, as in…

WINTER

IS

COMING.

Yep.
Yep.

 

Prepare yourself for the the memes, because they’re coming along with what appears to be this season’s first real Arctic front in about eight or nine days. Houston might even record its first freeze of the season, but there remains a fair about of uncertainty regarding that.

First freeze, when?

Let’s start with a bit of climatology. The following graphic shows when, historically, Houston can typically expect to record their first 32-degree or lower temperature of the season.

Houston first freeze climatology. (Brian Brettschneider)
Houston first freeze climatology. (Brian Brettschneider)

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