Matt Lanza

Houston’s heat hurtles along

As Eric has been describing much of this week, August is most certainly a month in Houston you just survive, and perhaps you use the time to dream about how jealous our cohorts in the Northern U.S. will be come November through March (as a transplant, I most certainly can confirm they’re jealous).

Continued hot the next few days, with just a few storm chances, mainly at the coast. I don’t see a lot of variation in the weather through the weekend: High temperatures should be mid to upper 90s and low temperatures in the upper 70s, perhaps low 80s at the coast. Rain chances should be about 5-10% inland, maybe 10-20% at the coast each day. We have a few showers near the coast already this morning, so look for those to continue in spots, perhaps diminishing in coverage a little through the weekend. It looks like a mostly decent weekend for outdoor plans if you can take the heat and risk of a quick passing downpour.

Traveling? Well, it doesn’t look much cooler elsewhere.

The weekend travel forecast is only slightly hot.
The weekend travel forecast is only slightly hot.

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Weekend Tropical Update

It’s still a bit early in the game, but we wanted to bring you up to speed on a couple tropical disturbances in the Atlantic that are driving “chatter” in social media and elsewhere about how they may or may not impact Texas and elsewhere. Let’s dig in.

“Invest 96L”

Before a tropical disturbance becomes a depression or named storm, for the purposes of running models and collecting data, the National Hurricane Center uses the designation “Invest” (90-99) to describe a system. Basically, it just means an area they’re investigating for possible future development. Invests are common and have a sequential numbering scheme that repeats through the season.

With that in mind, we have two “invests” out there. The first one is 96L, a system about 400-500 miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. It’s not terribly well organized, but it has a slight chance to develop over the next couple days.

Invest 96L slogs across the far eastern Atlantic, not terribly well organized. (NOAA/NHC)
Invest 96L slogs across the far eastern Atlantic, not terribly well organized. (NOAA/NHC)

 

Reliable weather models are mostly unenthused with the future prospects of Invest 96L. I haven’t seen any reason to think this will develop into much of anything, and its long term prospects likely do not include the Gulf, so no worries here for us.

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Back to regularly scheduled Houston summer

As we go into the weekend, the heat will begin to turn back up over Texas, as more standard summer returns. One interesting statistical nugget from the other day: Wednesday was the first time since June 12th that we had not hit 90 degrees in Houston, ending a 44 day streak that ranks tied for 15th longest 90+ streak all-time with 1902, 1958, and 1988. The longest recent streak of 90+ that we’ve seen occurred last year, 49 straight days from July 2 through August 19. The longest ever? 81 days in a row in 1890. I can’t even imagine…

Today

After another noisy afternoon yesterday, especially north of I-10, we’ll probably see some scattered storms around the region again today. That said, I don’t think storms will be as widespread as the last few days. Some heavy rain will be possible however again in a few spots, but those will be the exception, not the rule. We poked back into the 90s Thursday, and I suspect we’ll do it again today, probably closer to the mid 90s, typical for mid-summer.

Weather models imply we should at least see a few showers or storms by this afternoon. (Weather Bell)
Weather models imply we should at least see a few showers or storms by this afternoon. (Weather Bell)

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Hot Houston weekend

Yesterday was a bonafide scorcher for Houston, with another 98° day. Really, it was a scorcher almost everywhere in the Eastern and Central U.S. We’re squished under a heat dome here in Texas. Fortunately for us, the heat dome will begin to break down, or at least move around enough this weekend to open the Gulf back up a bit for some showers. It’s going to be hot, but hopefully some of us see a little relief at least.

WEEKEND

Rain chances will still be on the lower side today, with most activity likely south or east of Houston (most, but not exactly all). The majority of the area should stay dry and hot and humid, but rain chances aren’t quite zero. As we go into Saturday and Sunday, a surge of precipitable water, not too uncommon for this time of year, will come our way from the south and east.

The forecast for precipitable water lurches upward this weekend, increasing our chances for daytime storms. (Weather Bell)
The forecast for precipitable water lurches upward this weekend, increasing our chances for daytime storms. (Weather Bell)

This sets the stage for more “juice” available to fuel daytime storms. So I think coverage of thunderstorms on both weekend days will be more than we see today. Think about what happened on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of this past week, and I think that’s a reasonable analog case to what we see this weekend: A scattering of storms that dumps on a few folks, but leaves others high and dry.

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