Eric Berger

Happy New Year! As expected, New Year’s Eve brought a lot of moisture into the Houston region, but the rain moved out before the beginning of evening festivities during the evening, leaving behind a foggy, humid, and misty day to start 2017. More rainfall is on the way, however, with the potential for some severe weather late tonight and Monday morning.

Dewpoint temperatures this morning are in the 50s, and although conditions are calm at the surface, about a mile up into the atmosphere south-southwesterly winds will be increasing today, rising to about 50 mph in the lower levels of the atmosphere by Monday morning. This will both bring lots of moisture and shear into the area late tonight and on Monday—setting the stage for some severe weather. The most likely time for storms will occur from after shortly after midnight tonight through noon Monday, with storms moving fairly rapidly from west-to-east.

The primary threat will come from severe thunderstorms, damaging winds, hail and potentially a few tornadoes. Better chances for storms and higher rain accumulations will come north of I-10, where some areas may see 1 inch or more of precipitation.

As storms move out of the area by late Monday morning, skies will clear out and highs should rise to nearly 80 degrees. Cooler, drier air will arrive by Monday night, with a reinforcing shot of colder air later this week. How cold temperatures get by Friday or Saturday morning is not entirely clear, but forecast models have backed off the idea of an Arctic surge driving lows into the 20s.

We’ll update tomorrow morning with a comprehensive look at the week ahead, and out first forecast for the 2017 Houston Marathon.

Posted at 9 am CT on Sunday by Eric

As of 7 am CT a cold front has swept through most of the Houston area, bringing an end to the warmest late December streak of weather in the city’s history, an unprecedented five days of 80-degree weather during the Christmas to New Year’s period. As we swing back toward colder weather here’s a look back at the coldest temperatures across the region this season, so far.

Notably a few parts of Texas, Louisiana and the southwestern United States have yet to experience a freeze this year. Now let’s zoom in on southeast Texas, where you can really see the effect of warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay on land temperatures. A small slice of the coast has yet to freeze, and that’s unlikely to change in the next week or 10 days.

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The heat continues. Tuesday marked the fourth straight day of high temperatures of 80 degrees or greater in Houston, and the third record high in three of the last four days. According to data from Matt, That has happened five times before in the city in December (1933, 1956, 1995, 1998 and 2012), but all of the previous streaks came before Dec. 20. Today we’re likely to get our fifth—which has never happened in more than 120 years of records—before some cold weather sneaks into the region.

Today

You know the drill. Foggy morning, partly to mostly cloudy skies, and warm with highs around 80 degrees. Houston will experience one more very un-winter-like day before change finally arrives on Thursday. Looking outside, it dawns on me that for Houston, a White Christmas means fog rather than snow.

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This month’s anomalously warm weather continued on Monday, with a record high of 84 degrees. How abnormal is that? Just one day—one single day—has been warmer than that in all of the Decembers in more than a century of weather records of the city (Dec. 3, 1995, 85 degrees). The average temperature on Monday, 78 degrees, was 25 degrees above normal. Fortunately, this can’t, and won’t, continue for much longer.

Today

After a foggy start this morning (a dense fog advisory remains in effect until 9am CT), highs today should max out in the upper 70s. Mostly cloudy skies, and some scattered showers, should limit temperatures more than anything. A front will approach the region from the northwest, but should stall out before pushing into the city itself. This should help lows fall into the mid-60s tonight.

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