Matt Lanza

In brief: The heat goes on. And on. Houston is also dealing with a good bit of haze and smoke in the air from Central American agricultural fires, common in late spring. We remain cautious about a brief cool front next week, however.

First, a quick programming note. As summer is now underway in Houston, look for the Space City Weather summer outlook later this morning from Eric!

Haze, haze go away

Temperatures this week, while very, very hot have actually come up a couple degrees short of forecasts for the most part. Not by like 10 degrees or anything but something on the order of 1 to 3 degrees. Why? Almost certainly because of the low clouds and haze that have been ever-present over the area.

Why the haze? Well, this is the time of year when agricultural burning is ongoing in Mexico and Central America. How much? A lot.

With winds out of the south across the Gulf, this will transport all that smoke into our area. This is a common issue here in Texas this time of year, but it feels a little worse because of how hot it is so early. Whatever the case, given the number of fires ongoing and the amount of smoke already in the air to our south, I do not expect that this haze will relent anytime soon.

Today through Sunday

The heat continues. We may begin to push heat advisory criteria at some point soon. We’ve had a couple bursts of drier air this week that helped keep heat index values mostly in check (we did touch 100° for heat index at both IAH and Hobby yesterday briefly). While that could continue, we should begin to see a bit less wind. Overall, it will just start feeling a little more uncomfortable today, tomorrow, and perhaps Sunday. Expect highs in the low to mid-90s all three days with clouds, sun, and haze.

Rain chances are pretty close to zero, however, if you live around Brenham, Navasota, or Huntsville, it looks like there will be scattered thunderstorms firing up to your northwest on Friday afternoon. I would not be shocked if some of those make an attempt to reach these areas this evening. Just something to note.

Next week

Monday and Tuesday will probably just serve as an extension of the current weather pattern. So look for clouds, sun, haze, and 90s.

Now, later Tuesday there could be some showers or thunderstorms around closer to the area. And this continues to look like it *may* come with a brief front. If that can happen, it would still be rather hot on Wednesday, but the front would take a huge bite out of the humidity, in addition to cooling off our nights a bit. Will it happen? <Cue: Dramatic music> Find out Monday on the next edition of <studio audience cheering> SPACE! CITY! WEATHER!

In brief: A few showers will dot the radar around Houston today and tomorrow. We’re optimistic that Mother’s Day will turn out mostly fine. But next week? It’s gonna get hot, like June or July-type heat.

SCW Flood Scale

I want to start off with a quick note today. If you’ll recall, back in January of 2023, I had posted that I gave a talk about the SCW Flood Scale at the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting in Denver. We said we might have some opportunities to partner up with some experts to improve the scale. We love the scale, and we know you do. And while it works, we came up with it ourselves. It’s rooted in what we thought worked. Well, the goal was to get it rooted in science.

Thanks to the passion and interest of Dr. Steven Woods, the director of the Cognitive Neuropsychology of Daily Life Laboratory at the University of Houston and his PhD student, Natalie Ridgely, we may have a solution. Natalie conducted a bevy of research to understand how people consume weather information. Natalie just successfully defended her dissertation research this week, much of which comes out of her work that uses our flood scale and proposed modifications to it! I was honored to serve as a member of her dissertation committee, and I cannot wait for Natalie and Dr. Woods to share more details on this in the weeks and months ahead. Natalie’s findings are fascinating and illuminating and will become a great contribution to both neuroscience research and research of the societal impacts of meteorology. And they’ll have a permanent impact on our flood scale. Congrats to Natalie! More to come.

Overnight storms

So, yes, last night we had a few hours of storms right across the middle of Houston. Many of you missed out, but many of you participated. Thankfully, they were not severe, but they certainly had some noise — and rain.

The big winner was the area between the Med Center and UH, where a max total of nearly 4 inches occurred. A secondary maximum was just west of Sheldon. Rain rates were on the order of 2 to 4 inches an hour. They were some hefty downpours. Some pockets north and west of downtown also saw around an inch or so, but for the most part it was that corridor that got soaked.

Today

We have one last little broken line of showers rolling through the area now. Some heavier downpours are occurring southeast of the city across Brazoria County.

These will exit over the next couple hours, giving us a quiet middle of the day. With any sunshine will come some additional showers and perhaps storms today. The best odds of showers later today will probably be north of I-10, probably across Montgomery, Walker, Liberty, and San Jacinto Counties. With low pressure in the upper atmosphere over Louisiana, these showers will basically drop north to south.

Saturday

It looks like one little disturbance in the upper atmosphere is going to pivot around the upper low in Louisiana tomorrow, so I think our odds of scattered showers or thunderstorms actually may go up a bit, relative to this afternoon. These would probably pop up in the late afternoon and evening hours. So just have an umbrella handy for any Saturday evening plans. Look for highs in the upper-70s to near 80 degrees.

Mother’s Day

Drier air is going to begin pushing into the area on Sunday. I don’t want to completely take a rain chance out, especially east of I-45, but any showers on Sunday should be fleeting. And overall, any plans you’ve got should have minimal to no weather disruption with mostly sunshine otherwise. Highs should top out near 80 or so on Sunday.

Next week

Welp. There’s almost always a week in May where it becomes apparent that the season is about to change. Next week should be that week. Monday looks great, with a cool morning, highs in the lower 80s and comfortable humidity. By Tuesday we bounce into the upper-80s. Wednesday? Low-90s. Thursday we head into the mid-90s. And to be honest, I would not be shocked if we end up in the upper-90s by Friday or Saturday.

These will begin to approach record highs. The humidity should also transition back above normal later next week, probably making it feel a bit more uncomfortable. It should hopefully fall short of the intense heat and humidity we saw last May, but either way, brace yourselves, summer is coming.

In brief: Good evening! Matt here with a quick update for you on the weather that has, well, escalated across Houston. I am currently writing this from my son’s bed because some of the lightning (as many of you will attest) was too close for comfort.

As of 10:30 pm CT we have a nearly stationary line of thunderstorms anchored over the Highway 59 corridor, or on either side. It’s maneuvering around a bit but not enough to avoid some developing flooding issues. There is a flash flood warning in effect for this area until midnight.

Rain rates have been on the order of 2 to 4 inches an hour in the heaviest downpours. We would advise you to drive cautiously this evening. Based on modeling, our best guess is that this may continue through 12-2 AM and then quickly push out of here. Storms exiting the Texas coast to our south should help to get that going. But there is certainly a hint of uncertainty given how this system developed into unexpectedly potent showers and thunderstorms.

We will have the latest for you in the morning or overnight if for some reason things continue to get worse. 

In brief: Strong to severe thunderstorms are likely this afternoon and evening in the Houston area, especially north of I-10. Hail and strong wind gusts are the main concerns. Heavy rain is also likely in spots, so a stage 1 flood alert has been posted. After today, we get some quiet, if not absolutely beautiful weather this weekend.

Today/tonight

So, let’s get this out of the way first: This morning looks fine. No issues.

Starting this afternoon, probably not long after lunchtime, numerous showers and thunderstorms are likely to begin developing north of I-10. The environment over Houston looks conducive for virtually any storm to become strong to severe today. As such, we are now in an enhanced risk (3/5) of severe weather this afternoon and evening.

The two main threats today will be pockets of strong wind gusts in excess of 40-50 mph and the potential for hail. An isolated tornado cannot be entirely ruled out, but the bigger risks are damaging wind and hail today. The evolution of storms today will probably be individual cells eventually congealing into a line that lingers for a bit over much of the Houston area, again focused near or north of I-10. The severe storm threat should begin to wane after sunset, but additional thunderstorms are likely, especially south of I-10 overnight. So, almost everyone should get a chance to participate today with the nastier storms north this afternoon and evening and less intense storms south this evening and overnight.

In addition to the hail and wind, these storms could produce torrential rainfall, with totals of up to 3 or 4 inches possible in isolated pockets. Street flooding could easily crop up with storms like this. So, with that in mind, we are issuing a stage 1 flood alert for this afternoon and evening across the area, mainly north of I-10.

There are always fail modes on days like this, and it could be that we end up with heavy rain and generic thunderstorms more so than severe weather. But the environment today is definitely primed for some strong to severe storms, so particularly between about 1 PM and 8 PM, you’ll want to remain tuned into what’s happening.

Eric will have the latest for you around midday with a fresh update. We will follow with further updates as needed thereafter.

Saturday and Sunday

After some lingering showers well south of Houston or near the coast in the morning, Saturday itself looks like a fine day. Actually, it may end up being an absolutely spectacular day, but I want to keep expectations a little in check. But expect a return of some sunshine, noticeably lower humidity, and highs into the low 80s. Morning lows should be in the lower 60s. Look for much the same on Sunday without the morning shower chance.

You never know when you’re going to get your last really, really nice day before summer sinks in, so take advantage of tomorrow and Sunday if you’re able!

Next week

After another decent day Monday (albeit a bit warmer), we will re-emerge into an unsettled weather pattern for much of next week. Day by day details are tough to pin down right now, but look for at least a chance of thunderstorms on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Some of the storms could be strong, and some of the rain could be heavy.

More data!

I generally abide by a separation of church and state when it comes to my day job and my work with Space City Weather. However, I am going to make a minor exception in this case. For those that do not know, I was hired in November to be CenterPoint Energy’s new manager of meteorology. Among the many things I was tasked with out of the gate was siting and launching a network of 100 weather sensors across the Houston area, as part of the company’s commitments in the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative. In case you had not seen earlier this week, that process is now underway, and you can see the data from over 60 new weather sensors across the area here!

You may ask, “Well aren’t there already a lot of weather sensors reporting here?” The answer is yes. There are. But even when you plot virtually every network of weather stations, there are still some data gaps, there are periodically reliability issues, and most of you know how the weather goes in Houston where it rains at your neighbor’s house but not yours.

I’m hoping we can fill some of those gaps, assist with improving weather forecasting in the Houston area, and add additional data to be used by the NWS, flood control agencies, etc. to assist in understanding or researching weather in the Houston area. More data is good for everyone. So this project has excited me, I’m glad we can share this data with the weather community, and I look forward to seeing it grow further.