Matt Lanza

Hi all. You get Matt the next couple days. I just want to remind y’all about our annual fundraiser that’s underway through later this month. We have two cool t-shirt designs and umbrellas available to purchase if you’d like. The annual fundraiser helps support Eric and myself and our work keeping the site on time and online. Regardless, we appreciate your kind words and support throughout the year, and we are thrilled you choose us as a vehicle to stay informed.

On to the weather, and someone has to congratulate you for surviving the hottest November day on record in Houston. We hit 89° on Wednesday, which matches, with 9 other days, the hottest November maximum temperature on record in the city of Houston. The last time we hit 89 in November? Way back on November 6th of 2017. Almost a year to the day. The latest in November we’ve hit 89° would be on November 8th, done in back to back years of 1988 and 1989.

If you’re sick of the warm, ridiculously humid weather, we have good news. The end is pretty much here. Let’s walk through the forecast.

Today

We had quite the light show last night over parts of the Houston area.

About 90 seconds worth of lightning over #Houston condensed. Wow. #houwx pic.twitter.com/6l5ELoYpVf

— Matt Lanza (@mattlanza) November 8, 2018

In fact, some areas did receive over two inches of rain from the storms yesterday evening.

Some locally heavy rains also fell south of Houston. With the exception of a handful of remaining showers, it’s now quiet this morning. The cold front responsible for last night’s noisy storms is now sitting offshore. It’s still a bit humid, so southern parts of our area will have patchy dense fog to deal with this morning.

Otherwise, I would expect a good bit of cloud cover today, along with a chance for some lighter rain, drizzle, or showers at times. No serious weather is expected though. It will be noticeably cooler today with high temperatures probably not getting much past the low-70s in Houston. Areas south of Houston could still push mid-to upper-70s however.

Tonight & Friday

The next cold front arrives in the Houston area tonight. As it does so, expect showers and some embedded stronger thunderstorms to accompany it on its move south. The front should arrive in the far northern suburbs around midnight, give or take a couple hours, into the Houston area after 1-3 AM, and to the coast after 3-5 AM. Unlike our cold front last week, this edition will not come with a sharp, quick clearing line. In fact, the atmosphere behind tonight’s front will remain chilly, cloudy, and damp into much of Friday. Expect showers, perhaps a thunderstorm, and periods of light rain or drizzle along with a stiff north breeze during the day Friday. We should see around one to two inches of additional rainfall with this front.

Temperatures will remain mired in the 50s most of the day. Rain chances should dwindle as we get toward evening.

See full post

Just to tie a bow around Wednesday night’s cold front and severe weather: An EF-1 tornado was confirmed in Chambers County.

This map shows the path of the brief tornado that crossed I-10 NW of Cove TX last night around 10PM with the line of storms. The damage from the tornado was rated low end EF-1. #houwx #txwx pic.twitter.com/T0zdRwoEgG

— NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) November 1, 2018

Utility crews are working to restore power in The Lanai subdivision near Mont Belvieu and Cove, TX. NWS confirms a small tornado touched down here late last night. It was strong enough to blow out windows, blow down fences, and blow over a sales trailer #khou11 #htownrush pic.twitter.com/GObrfreg65

— Jason Miles (@JMilesKHOU) November 1, 2018

There was also a tornado in Colorado County near the Wharton County line. Texas City and Garden Oaks had straight line wind damage confirmed. The NWS was unable to confirm damage around Sealy, Katy, or Sugar Land, so they do not believe a tornado occurred in those locations at least as of Friday morning. More storm reports can be found here.

Today & Saturday

Today is our first morning officially in the 40s since April 16 of this year. We’ve hit at least 49° at Bush Airport as of 5:30 AM. We’re setup for a beautiful start to the weekend. Look for plenty of sunshine today and a little less wind than we saw on Thursday. High temperatures will rebound from our cool start into the upper-60s or low-70s.

Saturday begins our transition out of this autumn weather. Look for mainly sunny conditions again, but onshore flow will gradually develop through the day. We will start on a cool note with some scattered 40s well outside of Houston, but mainly low-to mid-50s for most. We’ll warm several degrees over Friday during the afternoon, with highs topping off generally in the mid-70s.

See full post

When I do Friday posts, I often have a problem where I feel as if I am writing too much about what’s happening with the weather. So I spend a good bit of time editing down some stuff and trying to focus on the important points. Today should be easy, as there is really only one important point: Sunshine!

Today through Sunday

This is the weekend we have been anticipating for months. It will feature mostly clear skies, pleasant temperatures, and pretty comfortable humidity. There are a couple things going on in the background to point out.

First, a few high clouds will stream across the region today, but they should not do anything other than add character to an otherwise blue sky. Look for temperatures to warm up into the middle 70s this afternoon.

A weak cool front should pass through the area this evening, but it likely won’t do much. Look for mid-to upper-50s in most spots and near 60 at the beach.

Saturday will be sunny and gorgeous. It will be a touch warm, but the low humidity will counteract that a bit. Expect generally lower 80s for high temperatures. We will be a few degrees warmer Saturday night, so expect around 60 in Houston, lower 60s near the beach and upper-50s northwest.

“Sun”day will live up to its name. It will be a little warmer still, with highs in the middle 80s possible. Again, mostly comfortable, low humidity will help.

See full post

Eric and I just wanted to provide a quick update to you tonight because the forecast has been a little tricky here.

Most of today has gone as expected. But the warm front that was supposed to hang around or south of I-10 into tonight has lifted a bit further north than expected, and is currently approximately straddling US-59. It also hit 80 degrees at both Hobby and Bush (81) today. The air mass over us is plenty conducive for heavier rain at times. That said, radar shows scattered showers and storms west and north of Houston as we told you would be the case this morning.

Some of this rain is fairly heavy. Thankfully, everything is moving along at a healthy clip so far, so it won’t rain too hard in any one location for too long.

The forecast from this morning deviates a bit from this point into the first part of Saturday. There have been some indications from various weather models this afternoon and evening that some areas around and southwest of Downtown Houston would see repetitive rounds of showers and storms through the night. The latest version of the HRRR model shown below also indicates this to some extent.

Earlier runs of this model were a little more bullish on rain, but nonetheless, you get the idea.

So what does it mean? Neighborhoods primarily south of I-10 and west of I-45 stand the risk of seeing a few rounds of heavy rain and thunderstorms this evening and overnight. Rain amounts could be locally impressive in spots, on the order of 1-3″ (most of us will not see that much rain). If everything moves any slower than we expect right now, 4-5″ of rain could be a possibility in a neighborhood or two.

At this point, Eric and I don’t see serious flooding concerns tonight. Localized street flooding is always a possibility in the Houston area, but we just want you to be aware of a slightly wetter forecast in the region than perhaps was expected. And with folks out and about on a mild Friday night, we want you to know that some area football games could be dealing with some rain or lightning delays. If something changes to make this any more serious over the next few hours, we’ll let you know. But, again, we don’t feel that will be the case.