Matt Lanza

In brief: Tropical Storm Bertha will pass through Houston today with a chance of a few gusty, heavy downpours and some steadier rain well south of Houston or on the immediate coast. Overall impacts are expected to be minimal. The heat backs off some today before revving back up later this weekend and next week.

Tropical Storm Bertha

Bertha is holding steady this morning, which is to say it remains mostly a steadily moving rainstorm.

You can see that the center of Bertha is hugging the Louisiana coast, while virtually all the storminess is displaced to the south and southwest well offshore. Bertha is not healthy but it’s a pretty blobby storm. Over the next 12 to 18 hours, the surface center of Bertha will move toward the Upper Texas coast, while the bulk of the rain moves toward Matagorda Bay and south or just falls over the open waters of the Gulf.

Bertha will make landfall again in Texas, likely no stronger than it currently is, with maximum winds over water of 45 mph and likely a good bit less than that over land.

Impacts in the Houston area? We’ll see scattered gusty thunderstorms later this afternoon and evening, somewhat like we saw yesterday (a handful of CenterPoint weather sensors exceeded 60 mph near the Bay and Gulf). Any of those storms could briefly produce torrential rain and localized wind gusts of 40 to 60 mph (most people will not see that). In addition, some breezy conditions will occur on Galveston Island down through Freeport, with a few gusts of 35 to 45 mph possible. Tides will be slightly elevated and there could be some run up on beaches, though coastal flooding is expected to be very minor. Basically, this should be like any modest coastal storm we see throughout the year.

Rain totals should not require even a Stage 1 flood alert on our flood scale today, but again just be aware that it could start pouring out of the blue at some point today.

On the positive side, cloud cover should hold temperatures down some after yesterday’s heat.

Today and Friday

We hit 102 degrees at both Bush and Hobby yesterday. (For those monitoring how close IAH is to reality, a CenterPoint sensor placed near the airport also measured 102 degrees). We will…not hit 102 degrees today. Look for highs back in the mid-90s today, especially north and west and upper 80s to low-90s south and east, closer to Bertha’s cloud deck.

Tomorrow should be a little hotter with Bertha passing inland to our southwest and declining. Look for mostly low to mid-90s.

Weekend

Saturday should be dry. Sunday should be dry for most too, though an isolated downpour can’t be ruled out. Temperatures inch upward here, back into the mid to upper-90s on Sunday.

Next week

Up, up, up we go again. We should be back to near 100 on Monday or Tuesday. Temps may exceed 100 on Wednesday or Thursday before sliding back some next weekend. But it appears another good heat wave is coming next week. Rain chances may remain minimal through Friday.

In brief: Tropical Storm Bertha is slowly beginning to weaken this morning, with most of the modest rain from it likely to occur well south of Houston. In the meantime, heat is the story with 100s likely in Houston today, followed by scattered evening thunderstorms (not associated with Bertha). Rain chances are mainly south and near the coast tomorrow and diminish over the weekend, along with less hot weather.

Tropical Storm Bertha

Bertha is struggling this morning.

The maximum winds have dropped back from 60 to 50 mph. The center is very close to the Louisiana coast, and all of Bertha’s thunderstorms remain offshore. Over the next couple days, Bertha should hug the coast and weaken further. Tropical Storm Watches are now posted on the immediate coast, which is what you would expect in this situation. Models are a bit split on Bertha’s future track, which ranges from the coastal hug to perhaps 100-200 miles offshore.

The models are in very good agreement, however on Bertha continuing to weaken, regardless of whether the track is nearshore or offshore.

So wind is not a concern for us. The next question becomes rain. Most of the “core” rain from Bertha is displaced south of the storm’s center, so if you assume the track roughly follows I-10 or just south, most of that rain should continue to press toward the middle or lower Texas coast, or from about Freeport through Corpus Christi. That would actually be a good thing for the most part, as those areas have seen relatively less rain than other parts of the state.

For Houston, it will mean scattered thunderstorms at times, which we will discuss below.

Just as a note, I’ve seen comments on social media about, “Well, Allison. And Harvey was downplayed!” This is neither of those storms. Bertha will have neither the environment, the time, or the space to organize as Harvey did. And unlike an Allison or an Imelda, Bertha’s core is going to end up on the Pacific side of Mexico by later this weekend. In other words, it keeps moving. And for those concerned about Hill Country, there is currently no rain forecast over the next 5 days there. We get the anxiety, but we also want you to understand that this is not expected to cause significant problems.

The heat!

Houston fell a tick short of our first 100 degree day yesterday, topping out at 99 degrees. A few isolated spots in the area did trip the 100 wire. Today should be the day, however. Temperatures are 3 degrees warmer this morning than they were yesterday. Northeasterly flow on the west side of Bertha will help give temperatures a jolt as well.

Today is one of those days where it’s highly recommended to take it easy during the peak heat parts of the day. Temperatures should ease back a little bit tomorrow. Today has “hottest day of summer” vibes, though August is still to come so I won’t make a bold prediction. As always, our partners at Reliant have some good energy usage tips today.

A Message from Reliant

With Houston hitting 100 degrees, Reliant is sharing simple, cost-conscious tips to help Texans manage their energy use efficiently without sacrificing comfort. Here are the top three actionable tips to cut costs, stay cool and conserve energy:

• Follow the “four-by-four” principle. Set your thermostat four degrees higher when you’re away from home for more than four hours to reduce electricity usage and costs.
• Avoid using heat-producing appliances like the clothes dryer, dishwasher or oven during the hottest times of day. The most ideal time to run those is in the early morning.
• Close blinds and shades on sunny days to prevent heat buildup and get the most out of the cool air coming from the AC.

More energy-saving and conservation tips from Reliant can be found here! 

As always, thank you to Reliant for sponsoring our site and being such good partners with us over the years.

Temperatures will be in the mid to upper 90s tomorrow through Sunday (much cooler near the coast tomorrow) and then perhaps push 100 degrees again next week.

Rain chances

Let’s jump into storm chances real quick, with Bertha approaching.

Today

First off, today’s storm chances will not be from the outer bands of Bertha. With northeast flow kicking up, there is a weak “backdoor” boundary coming out of Louisiana and into southeast Texas. As this encounters the extremely hot weather over the area, it is likely a smattering of thunderstorms will bulk up, moving northeast to southwest across the Houston area this evening.

Northeast to southwest moving storms like this in the Houston area have a bit of a unique “personality” to them. They tend to be later bloomers. They tend to hold their intensity into the evening hours after sunset. And they can be locally strong. Storms may continue past midnight along the coast or well south of Houston.

Thursday

Tomorrow’s storm chances will probably be near the coast mostly, as Bertha’s southern flank approaches. This is where we could see some locally heavy downpours or just a steady rain, from Galveston through Matagorda Bay. The heaviest rain tomorrow and tomorrow night may go in south of Freeport. Rain totals are expected to be perhaps up to an inch on the coast, less inland and 1 to 3 inches south of Freeport.

Friday through Sunday

At this point, nothing worse than a few isolated storms are possible Friday into the weekend.

At this point, we don’t believe we’ll issue a Stage 1 or 2 flood alert, but we’ll keep an eye on things and adjust that posture if need be.

In brief: Tropical Storm Bertha is expected to fall apart before reaching the Texas coast. While there is a slight chance of showers by Friday in Houston, it’s more likely that this week is just hot, with 100s likely tomorrow and possible today and Thursday. More hot weather continues into next week.

Tropical Storm Bertha

If you looked at satellite imagery this morning, you might ask yourself, “Really? Tropical Storm Bertha?” And without getting too into the weeds, all I will say is, “Yes. It is by definition technically a tropical storm. Just go with this.”

The aesthetics are off here, but that’s how these things work sometimes. Anyway, the actual surface center of 50 mph Bertha is located north of the thunderstorm activity, just south of Panama City, an indication that we’re dealing with a rather unhealthy tropical storm. Over the next 24 to 48 hours, Bertha is going to get blasted by wind shear, resulting in a gradual, perhaps quick weakening. So the storm may reach its peak today.

Bertha will continue westward, and the NHC track shows it reaching the Upper Texas Coast as a depression on Thursday night. The thought is that shower and thunderstorm chances would increase as a result on Friday, but even that may be a stretch. Realistic impacts would be slightly elevated tides and perhaps some breezy northeast winds (20-30 mph) in Galveston Thursday or Friday. Beyond that? It seems unlikely at this point that we’ll see anything more. And it may be generous to assume Bertha even survives the trip.

There is a little heartburn about, “Well, what if Bertha tracks farther south than expected?” We’re watching that, but even in that case, there’s a lot of dry air surrounding Bertha and the type of shear Bertha is set to experience usually decimates weak systems like this. We’ll obviously keep watching, but we really don’t believe this will impact Texas in a meaningful way. And there’s a decent, if not good chance we don’t notice any real impacts at all.

Heat wave

For those of you wondering if we’d ever see real heat this summer in Houston, you’ll get your answer over the next 3 to 4 days. That northeast wind shear that pummels Bertha is actually going to help deliver slightly drier air to Houston. Yes, humidity levels will be somewhat lower, but that will serve to crank up temperatures (drier air heats up more efficiently than more humid air). Not so much a “dry heat” as a very hot and somewhat humid setup.

We should see highs into the upper-90s, if not near 100 degrees today. Tomorrow is Houston’s best chance to exceed 100 degrees and feels like one of those days that could be the hottest of summer. Obviously, we won’t say that it will be with all of August still in front of us. But you get the idea. It’s going to be hot. Exercise maximum heat precautions tomorrow. Heat risk will be in the “extreme” category, the type of elite we get usually a few days each summer. Heat advisories are posted today, and we’ll see if those get upgraded to “extreme heat warnings” tomorrow.

It stays quite hot into early next week, although we lose that crème de la crème type heat. Unfortunately, our nighttime lows look to crank up as well, with more lows near 80 degrees with a return to more typical humidity levels for the end of July. If Bertha’s remnants can bring us some showers Friday, we may be a little cooler both Friday and Saturday. But not by a lot.

When does it end? The humorous answer would “after August.” The more realistic answer is that temperatures may slowly adjust down some with gradually increasing rain chances later next week. We shall see. In the meantime, buckle up if you’ve been waiting for this sort of weather, or become a recluse if you’ve been dreading this sort of weather. It’s going to be a little bit.

In brief: Tropical Depression 2 may become a tropical storm later today or tomorrow, but for Houston at this point we are not expecting significant impacts, anticipating that it will fall apart before arriving here. Still, we encourage folks to monitor the forecast over the next couple days in case anything should change. Otherwise, heat is the story this week, with a legitimate shot at 100 degrees, especially Wednesday.

Tropical Depression 2

Let’s get right down to business.

Tropical Depression 2 formed yesterday in the eastern Gulf. Over the next couple days, it’s expected to drift westward, becoming a tropical storm. Now, I’ll be the first to tell you that looking at this thing on satellite this morning, it’s not exactly looking healthy.

And, in fact, the vast majority of tropical modeling, as well as Google Deep Mind’s 1,000 member forecast ensemble keep TD 2’s intensity at or below middle grade tropical storm levels. In other words, we do not believe this is going to be a repeat of Beryl. Interestingly, if you look at the various ensembles, you also see a lot of them “losing” Tropical Depression 2 before it gets to Texas.

In other words, we are seeing the bulk of the modeling say that TD 2 is going to run its course before getting to Texas. The 5 to 10 percent or so that survive west of Louisiana are the ones coming to Texas. So it may look as if the modeling is all pointed right at Texas, but in reality, that’s mainly saying the remnant is. And when you look at the NHC forecast at the top, you’ll notice the intensity is dropped to depression when it makes it to Texas. Frankly, that may be generous given what we see this morning. It may be that this system ends up arriving as a shell of itself in Texas.

There are still a handful of model ensembles that track the system a little farther south, a scenario we won’t take off the table. But in those cases, it’s likely that the intensity of TD 2, or Bertha, would be capped by wind shear. And if that doesn’t do it, dry air that surrounds this thing on all sides probably will.

So what does it mean here in Houston?

As of today, impacts are expected to be minimal. Wind impacts at this point would be tropical depression or less. Marine impacts would be for some minor coastal flooding perhaps or just slightly higher tides. And rainfall impacts would also be minimal, with just a slightly increased chance of showers on Thursday or Friday perhaps.

That’s as of right this moment. Forecasts can and do change, and we encourage you to continue monitoring the forecast as the week progresses. If something notable changes this afternoon, we’ll chime in later today.

Hottest week of summer

Meanwhile, truthfully, the bigger story this week will be the heat. This is going to be our hottest week of summer so far. We have our best chance at 100 degrees beginning tomorrow and perhaps more likely on Wednesday.

We encourage folks to try not to go out exercising during the peak heat of the day, drink water, and just keep in mind that while your body adapts to summer heat, some days are just a little bit worse than others. That’s Tuesday and especially Wednesday. On the flip side, the humidity doesn’t look overly impressive. In fact, because of Tropical Depression 2, Houston may actually see some drier air filter in out of the northeast. That won’t make it feel gloriously comfortable, but it may allow for heat index values (or “real feel” temperatures) to be somewhat tolerable. It may also mean the difference between a heat advisory instead of an extreme heat warning.

After Friday

As noted earlier, the remnants of TD 2 could provide a slight bump in shower chances Thursday or Friday. After that, it looks like very standard summer here. We’ll probably have a couple thunderstorms each day but nothing significant. Temperatures will be hot but not extreme. And barring any change in pattern, it should be fairly calm.