Matt Lanza

Changes are coming to the Houston region beginning late tonight and tomorrow morning, taking us back into a wintry pattern for a couple days. Let’s break it all down.

Today

It actually should not be a terrible day today overall. It will continue quite warm and humid, but rain chances look low for most. The best chance of showers today would be for areas east and north of Houston, with a slightly better chance late today versus earlier. So have the umbrella, but I would be fairly surprised if you actually needed to break it open.

Today will be quite warm. We should be able to reach the upper 70s with little trouble today, and I think several 80 degree readings will be reported, particularly if we can break the clouds a bit. Some patchy fog is possible in Galveston or near the bays as the day goes on. It will probably be breezy again today, but winds should not be quite as strong as Monday.

Tonight & Wednesday

The chance of showers and even a few heavier thunderstorms will pick up overnight tonight and into Wednesday morning as our cold front approaches. We are not expecting any severe weather at this time.

In terms of timing, I think the front will approach the northwest suburbs between 10 PM and 1 AM tonight. From there, it gets a little trickier to exactly time out, but in general, a southeastward push of colder air should work across the region from the north through the morning.

Temperatures early tomorrow will be all over the place. Behind the front, essentially from Houston north and west, tomorrow morning should already be in the upper 40s through mid 50s. South and east of Houston may be in the low to mid 60s. The front will probably stall over Houston in the early morning, then resume a slow south and east slog by to mid late morning, reaching the coast by Noon. If you’re still on the warm side of the front tomorrow, look for a slow, steady 10-15 degree drop in temperatures after it passes. We should all drop back into the 40s (low 40s N & W, upper 40s near the coast) Wednesday afternoon. These shallow, cold air masses tend to overperform more often than they underperform around here, so I’m taking a slightly more aggressive posture with things today

In addition, it will be breezy behind the front, adding an extra chill.

Rain totals will range from a half-inch or less south of Houston to perhaps near an inch in a few spots north. Showers should taper off in the afternoon on Wednesday.

See full post

It’s been a somewhat gloomy late week, but we will gradually see some brighter skies roll in late today and especially this weekend.

Today

For most of us, Friday should start similarly, with a low, gray overcast. Clouds should gradually fracture a little, however I don’t think we will completely clear out today. But it won’t be the worst afternoon ever, with at least some sunshine. High temperatures will slowly warm to near or just shy of 60 degrees with a light north wind.

Tonight & weekend

Skies should clear out tonight. We will see low temperatures bottom out in the 40s.

Both Saturday and Sunday look beautiful right now. Some high clouds may spoil the sky by late Sunday afternoon. But that would be all. If you have outdoor plans, you have the green light to go forth and enjoy on either day!

We should warm into the 60s on Saturday, drop back into the 40s Saturday night, and warm back up to near 70° on Sunday.

See full post

Quick note: If you were woken up by or heard/felt an explosion this morning, you were one of many. There was indeed an explosion northwest of Houston near the intersection of Gessner and Clay Road. This is just south of 290 and east of the Beltway. As is often the case in situations like this, weather radar picked up the actual explosion or fire.

Explosion in NW Houston…radar picked up a return near the location at the same time #houwx #hounews pic.twitter.com/Sk8kqztPbo

— Jeff Lindner (@JeffLindner1) January 24, 2020

I’ve seen people as far away as Clear Lake hearing the explosion. We send our best to readers in that part of the area that may be cleaning up this morning. An unfortunate morning northwest of Houston.

On to weather, we are back into a really nice pattern today, but we do have a couple minor issues to discuss for the weekend.

Today

Friday should be a beautiful day with sun, light winds, and highs reaching into about the mid 60s.

Saturday

While I believe we will start out with sunshine, high clouds should begin moving into the region in the morning. The day will get progressively cloudier from there. Clouds thicken up in the afternoon, and at least a slight chance of light rain or some showers will begin by late afternoon. The best chance for seeing some of that rain during the daytime hours will be south of Houston, particularly from Freeport south through Matagorda Bay. Most areas north of Houston will likely remain dry during the daytime Saturday. Temperatures will warm from the mid or upper 40s in the morning to the mid 60s or so in the afternoon.

Saturday night & Sunday

From Saturday evening through Sunday morning, it will be fairly dreary across the region. Look for periods of mostly light rain and showers. A brief period of heavier rain cannot be entirely ruled out, especially along the coast. So if you placed an “X” over downtown Houston, areas to the south and east of there have the chance to see some higher rain totals. Inland from Houston, the odds drop off for seeing anything heavy.

Regardless, no serious flooding is expected, and rainfall totals should be manageable across the vast majority of the region. It will just be a fairly dreary Saturday night and Sunday.

See full post

As we’ve been discussing this week, the Houston area will see showers and thunderstorms later today or tonight and severe weather will be a possibility. I’m going to walk you through the day and hopefully provide answers to most of your questions.

Overview

The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) is continuing to keep the majority of the Houston area in the enhanced risk for severe thunderstorms today.

Based on what we’ve seen in modeling, for the Houston area, this threat will primarily occur much later today, after 5 PM and more likely closer to Midnight. So if you don’t see any rain or hear any thunder through this evening, do not be shocked. There may be isolated severe storms in the evening hours before a squall line of widespread strong to severe storms moves through just before midnight.

The severe weather threat quickly ends from west to east after midnight. The weekend looks fine.

This morning

Look for clouds and maybe a few passing showers. No severe weather will occur this morning. Temperatures, which actually rose a couple degrees overnight will continue slowly warming through the 70s. It will begin to turn breezy again, and winds could pick up to 15 to 25 mph or even stronger, especially along the coast and bays.

This afternoon (Noon to 4 PM)

We should see clouds, wind, and showers at times continue. Temperatures will warm into the mid- to upper-70s. We do not believe that the Houston area will see much in the way of thunderstorms this afternoon. Any strong to severe storms through afternoon will more likely occur way off to our north and west, well out of the metro area and region (think: Hill Country or perhaps up toward Tyler).

This evening (4 PM to 9 PM)

This is the part of the forecast in which we have the lowest confidence. Our best guess right now is that most of us will only see a couple passing showers in this timeframe. However, there is some chance that a couple rogue thunderstorms may begin to develop. Should this occur, any of those storms could quickly turn severe with hail, damaging winds, or even a tornado. To be clear: We believe this will very much be the exception, not the rule in the evening hours. Still, if you’re out this evening, ensure you have a way to receive weather warnings, just in case things get a little more chaotic than we are expecting right now.

Tonight (9 PM to 3 AM)

This will be the main timeframe that we see impacts from this event. Severe storms in Hill Country and the I-35 corridor should have congealed into an organized squall line by later this evening. Ahead of the line, we should see more numerous showers and a few thunderstorms begin to develop here. Any of those storms could become strong to severe, but it seems as though the primary concern will come from the squall line itself, which is going to quickly sweep across the region toward midnight.

As of right now, we expect the line to hit College Station around 9 or 10 PM, Huntsville through Sealy by 10 or 11 PM, the majority of the Houston metro area between 10 PM and Midnight, Galveston through Lake Jackson between 11 PM and 1 AM, and Beaumont/Port Arthur between about 1 to 3 AM. All those times are approximate and give or take an hour or so.

See full post