Matt Lanza

In brief: Scattered to numerous storms will impact the Houston area once more today. Severe risks, while low are not zero. We’ll remain unsettled heading into the late week and weekend but hopefully at a less intense pace than we’ve started the week with. Hotter weather lurks on the horizon.

[UPDATE: We’re pulling the trigger on Stage 1 Flood Alert. See the details at the bottom of the post.]

Today

After things calmed down yesterday, they stayed calm, thankfully. We will not have that luxury today. Storms (non-severe) are already moving across Matagorda County and Wharton County this morning.

There are also a couple isolated storms just west of Downtown. Over the next few hours, the activity near Matagorda Bay will slide across Brazoria and Galveston Counties. Some of those storms could be strong to severe with gusty winds. Lightning and heavy rain are a given with these storms as well. Elsewhere, scattered storms will pop across the rest of the area today. While we don’t expect significant severe weather, we cannot rule out isolated severe storms. Gusty winds are the main concern today.

It’s possible we see an additional cluster of storms develop with daytime heating out near College Station and the Brazos Valley. Those could swing through in the evening hours. Again, the primary concern would be isolated gusty wind as that happens.

Also keep an eye out for heavy rainfall. These storms are putting down close to 2 inch per hour rainfall rates. This could cause some street flooding to crop up in spots. Nothing too, too serious but just be mindful in typically flood-prone spots. Temperatures will be held back in the 80s today.

Thursday through Sunday

We may venture back to a somewhat less widespread coverage of storm chances here, with more sea breeze driven daily thunderstorms. Those tend to be less intense but can produce locally heavy rainfall. So all days should see the potential for a little street flooding in isolated spots. Many places would end up without much rain. One or two storms could be strong.

That said, we will want to keep tabs on what happens out in western Texas. We’ll be in a northwest flow aloft, as winds 20,000 feet up move from northwest to southeast across Texas. If any sort of complexes of storms can develop out west, they could end up nearby eventually. Models don’t do a great job predicting those features more than 18-36 hours out, so there’s certainly a tinge of uncertainty in the forecast. So with all that in mind, we don’t currently expect widespread storms but we’ll be babysitting the situation through the week.

Temperatures look to top out in the upper-80s on days with rain and low-90s on days without. Morning lows should generally be in the 70s.

Next week

A return to drier, hotter weather seems likely next week. High pressure may try to anchor over the Southeast or Gulf, which would keep Southeast Texas at least at the periphery of hot weather, with temperatures likely starting the week in the low 90s and moving upward from there.

Mid-90s will probably return at some point. Stay tuned.

Update: Storms this morning are producing localized torrential downpours with rates of 2-4 inches per hour that will cause heavy ponding and some street flooding in spots. As as result, we’re pulling the trigger on a Stage 1 alert on our Flood Scale.

In brief: The holiday weekend should be mostly fine (albeit hot) in Houston. Rain chances will rev back up a bit late Sunday night and Monday morning and again deeper into next week. For now, Memorial Day Monday looks unsettled but perhaps not a total loss.

Memorial Day Weekend

Let’s jump right into the big holiday weekend. First off, if you have plans in the Houston area or on the coast today and tomorrow, you’re more than likely going to have no issues whatsoever. There could be a passing shower or storm in the region, but it would most likely be extremely isolated. The vast majority of us should see absolutely nothing.

If the odds of rain on Friday and Saturday are something like 5 percent, then I think Sunday’s odds nudge up to about 10 percent. Again, the vast majority of the area will be fine on Sunday. But there should be at least a few more pop-up showers or a very, very isolated thunderstorm.

So what about Monday? Well, that’s the trickiest day of them all this weekend. Models have been pretty consistent about trying to bring a cluster of thunderstorms in from the north on Sunday night into Monday morning. We could then see a break in the action followed by another round perhaps on Monday night. We’ll see if that’s how it unfolds. Eric or I will throw an update out there on Monday morning with the latest thinking. I would not postpone any plans at this point, but I’d be mindful that the chance of rain is highest on Monday.

Region-wide holiday weekend weather

If you’ll be traveling across Texas this weekend, there should not be a whole heck of a lot to bother you today or tomorrow. Isolated storms could be on the stronger side between the Permian and the Panhandle. And there’s a slight (2/5) risk of severe storms near Wichita Falls on Saturday.

Sunday is a little more interesting with the potential for more severe storms, especially from the Caprock into North Texas.

The remnants of those storms are what we could see in the Houston area late Sunday night or Monday morning.

And then for Monday, that chance of severe weather moves more into Hill Country and Central Texas up through DFW. Basically, between Houston and Dallas, there will be some severe risk Monday afternoon and evening.

Memorial Day Weekend has had a history of flash flooding in Texas. At this time, the risk of flooding looks to be about average given the forecast; there are no significant flash flooding concerns right now.

Holiday weekend temperatures

As for the temperatures? They look hot. The combination of heat and humidity will make it feel like 100 to 105 degrees at times tomorrow through Monday. Actual highs will be in the mid-90s, with morning lows in the upper-70s. It will be cooler by day closer to the coast and a bit hotter farther inland.

Next week

Temperatures will back down a bit due to clouds and rain chances next week. While it won’t rain everywhere or every day, there will be a good chance of rounds of thunderstorms throughout the week.

In brief: The heat goes on. And on. Houston is also dealing with a good bit of haze and smoke in the air from Central American agricultural fires, common in late spring. We remain cautious about a brief cool front next week, however.

First, a quick programming note. As summer is now underway in Houston, look for the Space City Weather summer outlook later this morning from Eric!

Haze, haze go away

Temperatures this week, while very, very hot have actually come up a couple degrees short of forecasts for the most part. Not by like 10 degrees or anything but something on the order of 1 to 3 degrees. Why? Almost certainly because of the low clouds and haze that have been ever-present over the area.

Why the haze? Well, this is the time of year when agricultural burning is ongoing in Mexico and Central America. How much? A lot.

With winds out of the south across the Gulf, this will transport all that smoke into our area. This is a common issue here in Texas this time of year, but it feels a little worse because of how hot it is so early. Whatever the case, given the number of fires ongoing and the amount of smoke already in the air to our south, I do not expect that this haze will relent anytime soon.

Today through Sunday

The heat continues. We may begin to push heat advisory criteria at some point soon. We’ve had a couple bursts of drier air this week that helped keep heat index values mostly in check (we did touch 100° for heat index at both IAH and Hobby yesterday briefly). While that could continue, we should begin to see a bit less wind. Overall, it will just start feeling a little more uncomfortable today, tomorrow, and perhaps Sunday. Expect highs in the low to mid-90s all three days with clouds, sun, and haze.

Rain chances are pretty close to zero, however, if you live around Brenham, Navasota, or Huntsville, it looks like there will be scattered thunderstorms firing up to your northwest on Friday afternoon. I would not be shocked if some of those make an attempt to reach these areas this evening. Just something to note.

Next week

Monday and Tuesday will probably just serve as an extension of the current weather pattern. So look for clouds, sun, haze, and 90s.

Now, later Tuesday there could be some showers or thunderstorms around closer to the area. And this continues to look like it *may* come with a brief front. If that can happen, it would still be rather hot on Wednesday, but the front would take a huge bite out of the humidity, in addition to cooling off our nights a bit. Will it happen? <Cue: Dramatic music> Find out Monday on the next edition of <studio audience cheering> SPACE! CITY! WEATHER!

In brief: A few showers will dot the radar around Houston today and tomorrow. We’re optimistic that Mother’s Day will turn out mostly fine. But next week? It’s gonna get hot, like June or July-type heat.

SCW Flood Scale

I want to start off with a quick note today. If you’ll recall, back in January of 2023, I had posted that I gave a talk about the SCW Flood Scale at the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting in Denver. We said we might have some opportunities to partner up with some experts to improve the scale. We love the scale, and we know you do. And while it works, we came up with it ourselves. It’s rooted in what we thought worked. Well, the goal was to get it rooted in science.

Thanks to the passion and interest of Dr. Steven Woods, the director of the Cognitive Neuropsychology of Daily Life Laboratory at the University of Houston and his PhD student, Natalie Ridgely, we may have a solution. Natalie conducted a bevy of research to understand how people consume weather information. Natalie just successfully defended her dissertation research this week, much of which comes out of her work that uses our flood scale and proposed modifications to it! I was honored to serve as a member of her dissertation committee, and I cannot wait for Natalie and Dr. Woods to share more details on this in the weeks and months ahead. Natalie’s findings are fascinating and illuminating and will become a great contribution to both neuroscience research and research of the societal impacts of meteorology. And they’ll have a permanent impact on our flood scale. Congrats to Natalie! More to come.

Overnight storms

So, yes, last night we had a few hours of storms right across the middle of Houston. Many of you missed out, but many of you participated. Thankfully, they were not severe, but they certainly had some noise — and rain.

The big winner was the area between the Med Center and UH, where a max total of nearly 4 inches occurred. A secondary maximum was just west of Sheldon. Rain rates were on the order of 2 to 4 inches an hour. They were some hefty downpours. Some pockets north and west of downtown also saw around an inch or so, but for the most part it was that corridor that got soaked.

Today

We have one last little broken line of showers rolling through the area now. Some heavier downpours are occurring southeast of the city across Brazoria County.

These will exit over the next couple hours, giving us a quiet middle of the day. With any sunshine will come some additional showers and perhaps storms today. The best odds of showers later today will probably be north of I-10, probably across Montgomery, Walker, Liberty, and San Jacinto Counties. With low pressure in the upper atmosphere over Louisiana, these showers will basically drop north to south.

Saturday

It looks like one little disturbance in the upper atmosphere is going to pivot around the upper low in Louisiana tomorrow, so I think our odds of scattered showers or thunderstorms actually may go up a bit, relative to this afternoon. These would probably pop up in the late afternoon and evening hours. So just have an umbrella handy for any Saturday evening plans. Look for highs in the upper-70s to near 80 degrees.

Mother’s Day

Drier air is going to begin pushing into the area on Sunday. I don’t want to completely take a rain chance out, especially east of I-45, but any showers on Sunday should be fleeting. And overall, any plans you’ve got should have minimal to no weather disruption with mostly sunshine otherwise. Highs should top out near 80 or so on Sunday.

Next week

Welp. There’s almost always a week in May where it becomes apparent that the season is about to change. Next week should be that week. Monday looks great, with a cool morning, highs in the lower 80s and comfortable humidity. By Tuesday we bounce into the upper-80s. Wednesday? Low-90s. Thursday we head into the mid-90s. And to be honest, I would not be shocked if we end up in the upper-90s by Friday or Saturday.

These will begin to approach record highs. The humidity should also transition back above normal later next week, probably making it feel a bit more uncomfortable. It should hopefully fall short of the intense heat and humidity we saw last May, but either way, brace yourselves, summer is coming.