Matt Lanza

In brief: Mainly quiet, pollen-ridden weather through tomorrow in Houston, followed up by more scattered-type showers and storms Sunday through Tuesday. A cold front that’s more like a humidity front continues to look plausible around midweek next week. The tropics remain quiet for us.

Today & Saturday

Our late summer slog continues with hot days, warmer than normal nights, and generally high humidity (though at times it feels decent outside at least). Isolated showers are possible today, and we may see isolated to scattered showers or a thunderstorm tomorrow. Overall, nothing too bad. Temperatures will be in the low-90s for highs.

An ozone action day is in effect again today. For most people this will not be an issue, but for those of you in sensitive groups, try to avoid being outside except early and late in the day. Also, for those of you (like me) that have had the sniffles lately, there’s a good chance that ragweed is the culprit.

The typical autumn nemesis.

Sunday through Tuesday

Scattered showers and thunderstorms should be the name of the game beginning Sunday. While this will still be a patchwork type rain setup, a few more folks should begin to participate each afternoon. Expect continued highs in the low-90s but perhaps some slightly cooler afternoons at times due to the showers. Lows will remain mostly in the 70s.

Wednesday front!?

Eric has mentioned the potential of a cool front next week, nothing spectacular but a potential notable change for a couple days. That remains very much on the table today. The timing is a bit suspect, but sometime in the Wednesday or Thursday timeframe, it appears that a weak front will drop south into the area, bringing the potential for scattered to numerous thunderstorms for a short time. Behind the front, we’d turn a little cooler and a lot less humid to close out the week.

You can see the European model forecast of dewpoint for midweek, showing a distinct drop in dewpoint levels on Wednesday evening into Thursday and Friday. This is more of a humidity front than a cold front, though the lower humidity should translate into a chance at widespread lows in the 60s by Friday morning perhaps. With the Autumnal Equinox on Monday afternoon, we do see signs of fall sprinkling the forecast.

Tropics

Gabrielle is slowly building in the Atlantic, but that’s where it will stay. Another wave behind Gabrielle has some development risk, but that also looks to stay in the Atlantic. Is there anything to focus on for Houston? Nothing specific. There’s a general trend, particularly with AI models to try to spin something up in the northwest Caribbean in about 10 days, but that’s not supported much in the traditional physics-based models.

So this will be a good test for AI modeling: Are they capable of “seeing” a tropical genesis risk earlier than traditional models. In truth, earlier this season, when AI models were quite a bit spicier than traditional models at genesis forecasts, they tended to fail the test. This may also be a case of AI modeling being overzealous for some reason, but it’s something we’ll watch at least. Only 2 known hurricanes have had legitimate hurricane impacts on the Houston area after next week: Jerry in 1989 that hit Galveston and a storm that took a similar track to Beryl from last year that hit in 1949. History is on our side after next week, but as always, we will continue to watch.

For the record, come October we are more likely to be impacted by remnants of Pacific storms that bring heavy rain risk than a direct impact from the Gulf. That can bring its own set of problems, so forecasters stay vigilant deep into October.

In brief: Today should be dry and hot in Houston, but the isolated to scattered shower chances will (sort of) return this weekend. Temps will remain pretty hot with low to mid-90s being the standard for a while longer.

Look, if we’re really being honest, I don’t have much to add to what Eric’s forecast yesterday summed up in gifs. The only thing that kind of changed was the rain! Several spots picked up a quarter to even a half-inch or slightly more of rain yesterday from passing showers.

Unauthorized showers, but not bad at all.

Today through Monday

In terms of rain chances, today looks minimal to near zero. Tomorrow looks quite isolated. Sunday and Monday should see at least a smattering of afternoon showers in typical late summer fashion here in Houston. Most of us will probably see little to no rain, but like Thursday, a few locations could pick up a quarter to half-inch from a heavier downpour.

Temperatures? Well, we are truly in “Second Summer” now. It’ll be hot, today especially. I wouldn’t be shocked to see upper-90s in a few locations this afternoon. Temps will then back down into the low to mid-90s Saturday through Monday. Morning lows won’t be as nice as earlier this week, with mid to upper 70s.

Rest of next week

It may get hotter yet next week, with temperatures starting through Tuesday or Wednesday in the low to mid-90s. We could do mid to even isolated upper-90s by late week or next weekend, possibly. It looks like this week was, indeed, fake fall. The 8-to-14-day outlook from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center shows the highest odds of above normal temperatures in the Lower 48 right over Southeast Texas.

Every now and then, we can count on a decent end to September temperature-wise. I’m not sure this is the year. But, hey, at least we had this week and a mostly tolerable summer!

In brief: Houston will see more humid weather this weekend with rain chances re-entering the forecast slightly today and tomorrow and more so on Sunday as a weak front approaches. Though locally heavy rain is possible, we don’t expect widespread heavy rainfall. Temperatures will be warm by day and cooler again by night early next week before a late summer hurrah arrives again after Tuesday or Wednesday.

Programming note

If you live or work in the City of Houston, you are going to receive a test emergency alert this morning at 11 AM. It will look like an Amber Alert, except it will read “TEST Wireless Emergency Alert from the City of Houston Office of Emergency Management: No Action Required. TEST ALERT. For more information visit HoustonOEM.org.” The test is meant to only go out to anyone in Houston at that time, though because it’s targeted to specific cell towers, you may be in an adjacent location and still receive it as well.

Tests like this are necessary periodically to ensure the system works properly. WEA cell alerts have been a source of, shall we say, consternation in recent years for a number of reasons. They’re well-intentioned but in some cases not always relevant. Ignoring the broader conversation around those sorts of public safety alerts, we will note that weather alerts are quite relevant. Only higher end flash flood warnings will get pushed to your phone. I think this topic takes on some renewed relevance in the wake of the July 4th Hill Country tragedy, something we can discuss more another day. If you’ve turned them off in the past and want to turn them back on:

iPhone:
Go to Settings > Notifications, scroll to the bottom under Government Alerts, and you can turn on Emergency Alerts there.

Android:
Go to Settings > Safety & Emergency > Wireless Emergency Alerts, and you can enable Allow Alerts.

Anyway, we just wanted to make sure you knew that was coming today.

Today

I’m not sure if anyone else felt this way, but yesterday seemed really nice. We had very few clouds and generally tolerable humidity, although it was fairly hot by late afternoon. It sort of “looked” like a change of seasons was slowly beginning.

Of course, humidity is notably higher already this morning, so that autumn thinking may be short-lived. Expect a similar day overall: Sun, a few clouds, and highs in the mid-90s, possibly upper-90s — but with more humidity than yesterday. An isolated shower or storm could pop up this afternoon as the sea breeze moves inland, but most folks should stay dry.

Weekend

There has been some discussion around Lorena in the Pacific and how it may fling some higher moisture in our direction later this weekend. Well, Lorena’s forecast has changed significantly in the last couple days. It’s now post-tropical, and it’s expected to make a U-turn back out into the Pacific. While overall atmospheric moisture increases this weekend, the threat for any significant heavy rainfall has come off some.

Expect at least isolated thunderstorms Saturday and more scattered to perhaps even numerous storms on Sunday as another (!) front approaches. Locally heavy rainfall could occur, but widespread, significant rain is unlikely. Still, if you’ve got outdoor plans this weekend, just consider a backup in case a downpour passes by. Highs will be in the upper-80s to low-90s due to clouds, with high humidity.

Next week

With drier air filtering in behind the front next week, we will probably see low temperatures drop back into the low-70s or even upper-60s in spots. High temps will likely remain rather hot in the low to mid-90s. Our autumn fling will probably end after early next week, as high pressure tries to build and expand over the Southern Plains. Better now than in July or August, I suppose.

Whatever the case, look for a late summer hurrah beginning after midweek next week.

In brief: Another smattering of downpours is likely today, however, it will probably favor the southern fringe of Houston (Galveston/Brazoria Counties). Much calmer weather begins tomorrow, along with less humid weather thanks to our cold front as well. It still looks hot, but it will be much more tolerable at times, especially in the mornings.

Yesterday saw some impressive rains resulting in some street flooding and a flash flood warning near and just southeast of downtown Houston. Rain totals over 3 inches are plotted below.

We had just shy of 6 inches near 45 and the South Loop, just shy of 5 inches at Hirsch and Tidwell, and over 3 inches on the University of Houston campus. Overall, it was quite an active afternoon.

As for today, we’ll probably take down the Stage 1 flood alert we put in yesterday by this evening. There will still be downpours around today, and I think areas south of I-10, particularly down near Galveston or in Brazoria County will have the highest odds of some localized street flooding. Just a heads up for anyone returning from the coast from the holiday weekend.

Otherwise, look for intervals of sun and clouds with highs generally in the upper-80s to low-90s.

Rest of this week

A rather tranquil early September week awaits Houston. In terms of thunderstorms, other than an isolated one tomorrow, it looks like our next real chance at showers will wait til the weekend. Our first “front” of autumn is here now, and this about as good as we can hope for in the first week of September. We will actually see daytime highs increase this week, owing to a combination of fewer storms and drier air. In fact, by Thursday or Friday, we could be pushing the upper-90s again. But that drier air means it will be less humid than usual for the first week of September.

Less humid air should also translate into mornings that feel half-decent; not cool by any means but quite tolerable. A few locations on the outskirts of the metro area should see lows in the 60s I would imagine by Wednesday or Thursday morning. Overall, I’m not sure you could realistically script a much nicer week to open September with!

Another cool front is going to try and approach again later this week. This one will have limited luck in pushing through, but this could again reinforce the somewhat drier air mass over Texas early next week as well.

Tropics

The tropics continue to look calm in the Gulf. There is one area with (at least) a 40 percent development chance in the Atlantic, but this one will take a few days to get moving and is over a week out from the islands, not a concern for the Gulf at this point.

We have about 4 to 5 weeks of peak Texas hurricane season remaining. The first one looks good. Fingers crossed.