For Houston, winter is coming

Do you remember when I talked about a cold spell arriving around the time of Thanksgiving week? Well, it’s coming a little bit early, beginning on Saturday.

TODAY and FRIDAY

We’ll have two more gorgeous days like Wednesday, with full sunshine, dry air, cool nights and highs in the mid- to upper-70s. This is how fall should feel.

SATURDAY

A strong cold front will approach and move through the area on Saturday. It doesn’t appear as though we’ll see a squall line of storms, or anything like that, but beginning Friday night through most of the day Saturday conditions should be mostly gray, with light rain chances. I don’t expect accumulations of more than a tenth of an inch or two. The biggest change will be winds — gusting to above 20 mph — and colder air. By late afternoon or early evening the temperature will be in the upper 50s.

SUNDAY and MONDAY

Hello winter.

The GFS model is probably overdoing Monday morning's low temperatures, but whooboy it's going to feel cold. (Weather Bell)
The GFS model is probably overdoing Monday morning’s low temperatures, but whooboy it’s going to feel cold. (Weather Bell)

 

After a start to the day with temperatures around 40 degrees, highs on Sunday will struggle to climb out of the 50s under mostly sunny skies. Monday night should be the region’s coldest since early March. Much of the area, at least inland parts, could see lows in the upper 30s. The forecast models have trended lower (see the GFS forecast for Monday morning), but I don’t think we’ll see temperatures get that close to freezing. Still, it’s gonna be CHILLY.

THANKSGIVING

We’ll gradually warm up during the rest of next week and I’d expect highs on Thanksgiving to be in the upper 70s, or so. Unfortunately rain, or even storms, will be possible some days later next week but it’s too early to have any confidence in when.

Cool for the work week, and (potentially much) colder this weekend

As expected Tuesday’s storms blew through with some sound and fury, but didn’t end up doing too much damage. And in their wake they’ve left us with some gorgeous fall weather. This weekend should be even colder.

TODAY-FRIDAY

We’re going to have three gorgeous fall days. Sunny, highs in the 70s, lows in the 50s. Dry air. Moderate winds. You really couldn’t ask for more.

SATURDAY

Late Friday night or early Saturday morning a reinforcing cold front should arrive. This will bring with it a slight chance of rain, but nothing like the showers we saw on Tuesday. However this will set the stage for what will likely be a cloudy, chilly and breezy Saturday afternoon and evening. If you have outdoor plans you’ll definitely want a jacket.

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Strong storms moving into Houston today, isolated tornadoes possible

Good morning. A cold front was making steady progress across central Texas at 6 a.m. today and promised stormy weather for the greater Houston region later this morning and afternoon.

Location of the front and main squall line at 6 a.m. (Intellicast)
Location of the front and main squall line at 6 a.m. (Intellicast)

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Join me in welcoming Matt Lanza to the site

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The original Matt Lanza.

Today I’m happy to announce that Matt Lanza will be joining me here at Space City Weather. Matt is an experienced meteorologist with a Houston-based energy company.

You may remember that Matt helped me out at the Chronicle, and he shares my no-nonsense approach to writing about weather. Don’t get me wrong, we both love the weather and are fascinated by it. But we’re not going to hype things up when it’s not warranted.

Anyway, Matt’s great. He’s going to cover things on Fridays, and he’ll help me out during significant weather events so I’m not trying to pull 20 hour shifts and the like. I’m really looking forward to the help.

A few words about the site: At this point we’re basically doing this for free, so the best support you can give is to to continuing liking and sharing us on Facebook and Twitter, and share the link to Space City Weather with your friends. You can also subscribe by e-mail in the box on the right side of this post.

In the less than one month since I started this the site has really grown nicely. Eventually we’d like to find a sponsor, but for now we’re focused on making sure we get the basics right, providing the forecast information you need to know about the greater Houston area. There are a ton of apps to get five-, seven- and 10-day weather forecasts. But those come from machines. My goal here is to provide a reality check, and provide more insight than can be gleaned from a single model forecast.

As always, thanks for your support.