Matt Lanza

In brief: Smoke and dust creating a hazy situation around Houston this weekend will likely continue into early next week. But also a slight change will allow for some minor rain chances to return after the weekend.

The weather in Houston can only be described right now as very typical late June or July. It’s hot and humid but not overly so. We have already seen some Saharan dust, but we’re also seeing a lot of haze aloft that is almost certainly related to ongoing Western U.S. wildfires.

This acrid looking mix of smoke, dust, and haze will persist through the weekend, only accentuated by a burst of Saharan dust by later Sunday or Monday.

Today & weekend

Not a whole lot of change in things expected here, with sun, heat, humidity, and haze. Saharan dust thickens up a bit as Sunday progresses. Shower chances are minimal. That’s about it. We’ll keep it simple today.

Next week

As we head into Monday and Tuesday, a sprawling area of upper-level high pressure is going to establish itself over the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, bringing a pretty hefty heat wave to parts of the Midwest, Mid-South, and East Coast. Houston will be positioned on the southwest periphery of that high pressure. For us, that does a couple things.

First, it should open the door to the Gulf a bit. This will allow for the typical splash and dash summer thunderstorms we get here in Houston to re-enter the picture by Tuesday or Wednesday. Second, it will allow for the Saharan dust plume to blow into the area early in the week. Smoke from the western wildfires should hopefully diminish some. Also, it means that if any tropical waves enter the Gulf, they could be pointed toward the Gulf Coast. By Wednesday or Thursday, that’s a possibility, and although development of any significance is not expected, it could help nudge up our rain chances a little for the middle to end of the week. Or it could mostly end up in Louisiana. Both are reasonable potential outcomes. We’ll watch this weekend to see how things go.

Either way, by our 250th birthday next weekend, we’ll probably see that Gulf connection back off a bit as high pressure shifts out of the Midwest, with somewhat hotter, drier weather returning to Texas.

Drought update

The rains of late have definitely done wonders for our drought situation in Texas. Most of the state is now free of drought, with the notable exception of the Panhandle and portions of northeast and interior central and south Texas. The last time the majority of Texas was free of “abnormally dry” or worse conditions was September of last year.

Lake Corpus Christi is about 33 percent full now, up from 14 percent a month ago. While Choke Canyon is still in very poor shape (below 10 percent full), the other reservoirs are picking up the slack and buying some time before what will hopefully be a wetter winter in South Texas. We shall see.

In brief: After yesterday’s ridiculously high humidity in Houston and across southern Texas, we start to think about more rain chances this weekend. We’ll start to dry out a bit more next week, with a return of hotter weather and standard Houston mid-summer.

In the storied history of Texas humidity, yesterday was a first ballot hall of fame day. “But it’s always humid and hot in Texas.” Yes, that is the case from June through September. However, statistically, yesterday was on another level. Let’s start with Houston. I went back and looked at hourly observations from Bush Airport going back to the 1970s. Yesterday ended up being the 12th most humid day on record there. How am I defining “most humid?” It’s the daily average of dewpoints. The higher the dewpoint, the more humid or oppressive it is.

I was surprised to see that one day last summer (August 26th) actually beat it out by a tenth of a degree. The most miserable stretch of humidity on record in Houston had to be June 2019, with dewpoints averaging near 80 degrees.

Now, if you change the location, you get some different results. For instance, at Hobby Airport (where hourly records only go back to 1996), it still ended up being the second most oppressive day on record.

While actual air temperatures weren’t too crazy, the combination of this humidity, in some cases way inland also produced some extreme heat outcomes. Maximum heat index values hit 110° in Galveston and College Station, 112° in Waco, Tomball, and Sugar Land, 113° at Bush and in San Antonio, 114° at Hobby, 118° in Austin and Brownsville, 120° in Bay City, and 122° (not a typo) at Corpus Christi. That Corpus heat index has only been hit on seven prior occasions back to 1948. Their all-time record heat index is 125° on June 17, 2023.

So no, it was not your imagination; yesterday was near maximum tier humidity for the Houston area, and much of Texas for that matter. The cause obviously has something to do with Arthur and the recent surplus of rain we’ve received. But I am assuming it’s pretty nuanced, with some degree of those influences as well as a warm Gulf contributing. I think that the Arthur influence is tenuous, however. Typically, winds behind tropical systems come out of the north or northwest, which actually lowers the humidity a little but allows temperatures to skyrocket (dry air heats up more efficiently than humid air). Yesterday saw winds out of the south or south southeast. I have to think the warm Gulf and recent rains and saturated soil were the primary causes.

Onward.

Today

I wish I could tell you today would be a little less oppressive, but I cannot. At least not for the morning. Dewpoints remain in the upper 70s and low-80s across the area this morning. Thus, heat index values are already in the lower 90s in most spots. As the day goes on, we’ll probably see humidity values drop just a little, which is enough to keep us in Heat Advisory conditions today rather than yesterday’s Extreme Heat Warning. Heat index values will probably peak a couple degrees lower than on Thursday.

Additionally, we could see some rain today, which would help the heat out. Today’s higher rain chances are north of I-10, especially as you get up toward College Station, Conroe, or Lake Livingston. That said, we could see a few storms fire off in the Houston Metro as well. Any storm today could again produce torrential rainfall for a short period of time and localized street flooding.

Saturday

We should cool off a little more on Saturday thanks to some added cloud cover and rain chances. Saturday’s specific rain forecast is a little tricky, but scattered thunderstorms are likely across the entire area. This means not everyone will see rain, but many folks should. Yet again, locally heavy downpours are a possibility. Look for highs around 90 and heat index values probably another 1 to 4 degrees lower at peak than today.

Keep the heat in mind, especially if you’re participating in the Oranje Fanwalk for the World Cup or heading to the events in EaDo (and elsewhere).

Sunday

The end of the weekend should begin to transition us back to more typical summer weather. Look for isolated to scattered thunderstorms, with less coverage than Saturday. High temperatures will be in the low-90s with typical Houston heat index values in the low to mid 100s.

Next week

It would seem that next week will step us up into standard Mid-summer weather here in Houston. High temperatures each day should be in the low to mid-90s.

Morning lows will be generally around 80, give or take a couple degrees. And rain chances will be low but not zero.

In brief: Hot, humid weather stays in Houston through Sunday before a return to a much stormier weather pattern Sunday night through Tuesday. Heavy rain is a good bet, along with the potential for some flash flooding during that time.

Yesterday was 93° here in Houston. Just a reminder to folks, especially with so many added events happening across town due to the World Cup: Stay hydrated (with water) and wear sunscreen. Early season heat is always a bit extra stressful on the body because we have not entirely acclimated to it yet. And with a lot of people doing a lot of not-typical early summer things, it can weigh on you. We just want to add in that note to remind folks of that as summer makes itself comfortable here.

Today & Saturday

Much like we’ve seen the last couple days, you may run into an isolated downpour at any point during the day. Nothing organized is expected to impact the area, but you may want to have an umbrella at the ready, just in case. We’re probably looking at about 91 to 93 degrees both days for highs.

Sunday

Deep tropical moisture will begin to pool over Texas later tomorrow and then especially Sunday and Monday. As these moisture levels increase, so too should the coverage of showers.

We don’t expect much of anything organized Sunday, but there will probably be somewhat greater coverage of downpours across the area. For those attending Germany vs. Curaçao or taking part in any of the festivities around town, just have an umbrella handy. Highs will be near 90 degrees.

Sunday night through Tuesday

The combination of tropical moisture off the Gulf, as well as an approaching “cool” front is likely going to lead to an outbreak of numerous downpours and thunderstorms across Texas, including in the Houston area. Our region has already been placed under a slight risk (level 2/4) for excessive rainfall and flooding risk for Monday.

Most areas should pick up a solid 1 to 2 inches of rain from this. We do expect there to be pockets of higher totals right now, above and beyond 3 to 4 inches, but it’s tough to say exactly where those are most likely. (Here? Louisiana? Both?) But this is something we will watch and update you on Sunday about. I would expect us to probably issue a Stage 1 or 2 flood alert, but we’ll see what the data shows through Sunday. Manageable but perhaps an inconvenience at times.

Either way, expect Monday to be close to a washout and perhaps Tuesday as well. Temperatures will struggle mightily as a result, with highs probably only in the mid-80s at best on those days.

Rest of next week

We should begin to dry out from the heavier rains Wednesday and Thursday, but the pattern still looks a bit unsettled. Temperatures should begin to warm up again, back to the low-90s by the weekend.

In brief: With the World Cup’s Houston leg kicking off on Sunday, we take a look at the different types of weather our visiting nations usually experience at home and how they compare to our weather here in Southeast Texas.

We wanted to have some fun with the World Cup participants coming to Houston this year, so as a weather site, we decided to take a weather angle. Let’s learn some new things about global weather!

A lot has been made of this World Cup and the heat some of the teams will face on the pitch across North America. Here in Houston, thankfully the games will be in the climate-controlled confines of Reliant Houston Stadium (apologies to our gracious sponsors Reliant for removing their name on the stadium, but everything about the FIFA needs to be sanitized and controlled, of course). ANYWAY. It could be 110 degrees outside, and the teams playing each other in the stadium would never know it. But, during the rest of their stay in Houston, they will get reminders of our climate here in Southeast Texas. So we wanted to ask the question: How does the weather stack up in June in Houston compared to the countries where these national teams are coming from?

First, let’s introduce our contestants.

Germany
Curaçao
Portugal
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Netherlands
Sweden
Uzbekistan
Cabo Verde
Saudi Arabia

We won’t get into the knockout rounds for the purposes of this post. First, take a pause, look at the list, and take a guess as to which countries have the most similar weather to Houston and the most *dissimilar* weather to Houston. I am writing this before researching, and I will throw out Curaçao and Sweden as most and least similar respectively as guesses.

So with that out of the way, let’s go down the list and start comparing.

Germany

From what I have read and heard, Germany can be lovely in June. The first Reddit hit I get on Google in r/germany is entitled “June in germany Sucks,” however, so I suppose your mileage may vary. It’s also fairly large. Germany can have some variable weather in June from place to place, with temperatures ranging from the upper-60s to 80s most days. Heat waves can occur with temperatures well into the 90s. Taking June 15th as a decent proxy for the month and looking at the four largest Germany cities, here’s what we get.

City	Average High	Average Low	Record High	Record Low
Berlin	71°	56°	86°	45°
Munich	72°	53°	86°	39°
Frankfurt	75°	55°	90°	43°
Hamburg	70°	52°	86°	41°

Records can get into the low 90s in most places, with even some mid-90s. The sun sets as late as almost 10 PM in Hamburg, which is the farthest north of these cities as well, so there’s plenty of evening light to enjoy. Temperatures can obviously be cooler in the Alps as well. Rainfall averages about 2 to 3 inches in June across the country.

Verdict: Not at all like Houston.

Curaçao

A lot has been made about the kits Curaçao might have worn had they been the “away” team at a match in their first ever World Cup, though unfortunately it seems like that will only happen if they can miraculously make the knockout round.

What about their weather? Well, first of all, where is Curaçao? It’s considered a “constituent island country” that is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is in the far southern Caribbean, just off the coast of Venezuela and east of Aruba. Thus, it has quite the tropical climate, even more so than Houston. Average highs in June are around 81 to 82 degrees and average lows are 79 to 80 degrees. There’s not exactly a whole lot of variability to the weather there during the course of the year, being less than 1,000 miles from the Equator. June rainfall averages around 2 inches.

Curaçao is also far enough south to generally avoid most tropical storms and hurricane. Over the last 175 years, there has only been one direct hit by a tropical storm (Cesar in 1996) and the closest hurricane to pass near the island occurred in October 1892, when a presumed category 2 storm passed just south of the island.

Verdict: Not severely dissimilar from Houston but with much less variability than we have.

Portugal

On the west coast of Europe, Portugal has a generally pleasant Mediterranean climate. It is one of the warmest countries in Europe overall. In June in Lisbon, average highs are near 80 degrees, with average lows in the 60s. Farther north, it cools off some. If you were looking for a comparable U.S. city to Lisbon, it might be Los Angeles (77/61 this time of year on average). If you wanted a comparable U.S. city to Porto in June, it might be Portland. OR (74/54 this time of year on average).

June	Average High	Average Low	Record High	Record Low
Lisbon	79°	62°	99°	52°
Porto	73°	57°	99°	45°

Portugal’s summer, like in the American West is their dry season. June only averages just shy of an inch of rain. In other words, summer in Portugal, while periodically hot, is generally delightful.

Verdict: Much drier and more comfortable than Houston.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The DRC is the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa. Basically, it sits almost squarely in the middle of the continent, almost bisecting the Equator, with roughly 1/3 of the country in the Northern Hemisphere and 2/3 in the Southern Hemisphere. Much of the DRC is flat or with gently rolling terrain, but there is a major mountain range called the Rwenzori Mountains on the eastern border of the DRC with Uganda. The highest peak there, shared by both the DRC and Uganda is called Margherita Peak that stands 16,762 feet in elevation. One of the more dominant geographic features in the DRC is the Congo River, which carries the second highest volume of water of any river in the world (the Amazon River is #1).

Anyway, with that being said, the DRC has a fairly complex climate given that it straddles the Equator! The southern part of the country has a wet season in their summer/our winter. And the opposite holds true in the northern third of the country. You can clearly see that below, where Kisangani (in the north) averages over 4 inches of rain in June, while Lubumbashi in the south averages literally no rain at all in June.

June	Average High	Average Low	Average Rainfall
Kisangani (north)	86°	70°	4.50″
Lubumbashi (south)	77°	46°	0.00″

Verdict: Way too complicated to be similar to Houston, but Kisangani isn’t terribly far off.

Netherlands

Given its proximity to Germany in Europe, one would assume the Netherlands has a fairly similar climate, and you’d be right to an extent. Amsterdam is only about 200 miles west of Hamburg.

June	Average High	Average Low	Record High	Record Low
Amsterdam	71°	55°	82°	40°

But the country’s proximity to the North Sea does a heck of a job moderating the temperature. There’s a significant discrepancy between the record values in Amsterdam when compared to Hamburg, where the records are primarily in the 80s, with a couple 90s in June. Hamburg has far more records in the 90s. So they tend to miss out on the worst of the heat in the Netherlands, but they can still get hot. The all-time record high in Germany was 106° in Duisburg in July 2019. In the Netherlands, the record is merely a degree cooler (105°) also in July 2019.

Houston is very similar to the Netherlands in one area: Flooding. While much of the flooding the Dutch face comes from the sea and from rivers, they are considered the world leaders in flood control. And a highly engaged relationship has grown between Houston and Amsterdam.

Verdict: Similar challenges to Houston but not similar weather.

Sweden

Our farthest north country, the Swedes enjoy a wide diversity of latitude, stretching about 1,000 miles from top to bottom. Stockholm, the capital and largest city lies on the eastern side of the country, on the Baltic Sea. The largest cities are in the south, including Stockholm, Malmo (across the bridge from Copenhagen) and Gothenburg.

June	Average High	Average Low	Average Rainfall
Stockholm	69°	50°	2.40″
Gothenburg	65°	49°	1.75″

Highs generally average in the 60s and 70s throughout June with lows in the 40s and 50s. It has gotten as hot as 100 degrees in Målilla in the interior south way back in June of 1947.

Verdict: Much too temperate to even be comparable to Houston.

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan was on my radar recently because I noticed that Foreign Grill over in the POST Houston, serves authentic Uzbek food. I will have to try that out. Uzbekistan is a landlocked country in western Asia. It is bordered by several other Stan countries. Of the seven total Stan nations, the only one that does not border Uzbekistan is Pakistan.

Being landlocked likely means an interesting, probably somewhat arid climate, right? Right. Tashkent, the largest city and capital of the country averages 17 and a half inches of rain. Per year. And much of the rest of the country is drier than that. Put it this way, there are places in Uzbekistan that see as much rain in a year as we see in an hour from our heaviest downpours. About 80 percent of Uzbekistan is desert. The summer is their drier season, and June typically only sees about a half-inch of rainfall in the capital.

June	Average High	Average Low	Record High	Record Low
Tashkent	92°	65°	109°	39°

Verdict: Suffice to say, Houston is not 80 percent desert. The Uzbeks will get a dose of true humidity here.

Cabo Verde

Cabo Verde and Cape Verde are basically interchangeable. For many years, we called it Cape Verde, but the country officially changed names to the Republic of Cabo Verde back in 2013. For most of us in Houston that recognize this nation, it’s because of hurricanes. Why? Because every disturbance that comes off the coast of Africa passes near the Cabo Verde Islands. In fact, August and September are often referred to as “Cape Verde” or “Cabo Verde season.” While Curaçao has seen less than 30 storms pass within 70 miles, Cabo Verde has seen over 65 of them that we know since the 1850s. Only 3, however were hurricanes at that point: Fred in 2015, Debbie in 1961 (which became a hurricane only after passing through), and an unnamed storm in 1892.

A lot is made of storms that form near Cabo Verde, but in reality of those 66 storms, only 9 have impacted the U.S., and only one made it to the Gulf (an unnamed 1947 storm that hammered Fort Lauderdale and flooded New Orleans).

Weather-wise, one might assume that Cabo Verde is frequently impacted by tropical waves emerging off the African west coast. However it’s actually a very arid country. In fact, much of Cabo Verde sees maybe 2 to 6 inches of rain annually. However, because it is mountainous, orographically induced precipitation can yield closer to 40 inches of rain at higher elevations. The bulk of the precipitation does come from tropical waves, and August, September, and less so October are the only wet months of the year.

June	Average High	Average Low	Record High	Record Low
Cabo Verde	81°	71°	93°	59°

Because it’s surrounded by water, it’s a bit cooler than the coast of mainland Africa but with warmer ocean temperatures.

Verdict: Cooler, drier, and less hurricane-prone (ironically) than Houston. No dice.

Saudi Arabia

We saved the hottest for last. Saudi Arabia, of course, is located in the very arid Middle East. While the vast majority of the country is just outright desert, the southwest (south of Jeddah and Mecca) does have higher mountains. It’s actually an escarpment that marks the eastern edge of the Great Rift. Most of the mountains north of Jeddah and Mecca are about 6,500 feet high or less. South of there, some of the peaks can get as high as 9,800 feet. The Soudah Peaks average about 79 degrees for highs in June and 51 for lows, far different than most of the rest of the country.

June	Average High	Average Low	Record High	Record Low
Jeddah	109°	82°	118°	68″
Riyadh	109°	83°	117°	70°
Dammam	111°	82°	123°	70°

We often hear about the massive humidity levels of the Persian Gulf, but that’s only on Saudi Arabia’s east coast. Dammam is the third largest city in the Kingdom and is right across from Bahrain. The average dewpoints in summer in Jeddah and Riyadh are in the 30s. The average summer dewpoints in Dammam are in the 60s and 70s. A 111° day with a dewpoint in the mid-60s can feel more like 115 to 120 degrees. A 111° day with a dewpoint in the 30s feels more like 105°, yes, cooler than the actual temperature.

Verdict: Houston is not a desert, nor is it as hot as some coastal cities along the Persian Gulf.

Final verdict

For the most similar countries, we can safely eliminate Saudi Arabia, Cabo Verde, Uzbekistan, Sweden, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Germany. That leaves us with Curaçao and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By virtue of a slightly more variable climate and higher rainfall in June than Curaçao, I am declaring the northern DRC our champion. Feel free to tell me I am wrong in the comments.

As for who is most dissimilar? Sweden and Saudi Arabia for opposite reasons may be the champions. I would crown Uzbekistan a runner up.

Hopefully you enjoyed this and also learned a thing or two about different climates around the world!