Matt Lanza

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.

In brief: We are pushing out a Stage 1 flood alert for today based on developments since this morning. Locally heavy downpours will almost certainly cause some street flooding around the area, primarily of the nuisance variety, so use caution the rest of the day if out and about.

Update: The flash flooding threat has mostly ended. We will go back to normal, ending the flood scale alert and referring you to our Friday AM post for the weekend outlook.

We’re going to update things today, as it appears we’ve got some sluggish movers out there. We’ve already seen a couple flood advisories this morning, and some chunks of the area have received 1 to 4 inches since Tuesday.

As such, we’re going to fire up the flood scale for Stage 1 today. I would bank on at least a few areas seeing flooded streets today that may inconvenience travel as the afternoon wears on. So, use caution out there today, particularly in areas of persistent downpours. Off and on rain and thunder is likely to persist and maneuver around the area through early evening before hugging the coast at times again overnight, possibly spreading inland a bit again as well.

So use caution out and about, and we’ll let you know if things should escalate further, though we don’t believe that to be so today. Our next update will be planned for Saturday morning unless the situation warrants otherwise.

In brief: Another round or two of showers and storms will pelt many parts of the Houston area today, with some locally heavy rain possible. Rain chances will start to slow this weekend into early next week before the next round of rain chances kicks off around midweek. There are no current tropical concerns for the Houston area.

Yesterday’s storms were relatively squirrely, especially down in Brazoria and southern Fort Bend Counties. There was a 66 mph wind gust reported from a CenterPoint weather sensor at Brazos Bend State Park. Fascinatingly enough, the radar looked rather innocuous with the storm at the time, but some strong wind gusts elsewhere, including nearly 50 mph just west of Damon seem to back that reading up. That’s just the thing with storms this time of year in Houston: If you catch one at the wrong point in its life cycle in the wrong way, it can produce some pretty quick, short-lived but nasty impacts.

Today

Already today we’ve seen plenty of thunder and some wind gusts up near 50 mph near San Luis Pass. As of this writing, the heavier storms are all offshore, with some isolated downpours and lightning outside the Beltway in western Harris County back through Sealy and Columbus.

As the day goes on, we may actually see things calm down a bit for a time before ramping back up again this afternoon or this evening. I’m not entirely confident on the timing of the next wave; some modeling is quick and quite aggressive with coverage of the next wave of showers as early as late morning. Others hang development back until late afternoon. But we do know a second wave of scattered downpours is likely later today. Expect a very sporadic pattern of coverage with some places seeing squat and others seeing as much as 2 to 3 inches in short order.

Weekend

A continued chance of showers and thunderstorms will be with us on both Saturday and Sunday, as is typical for August. We do think coverage and some of the intensity of the storms will wane a bit on both weekend days, with perhaps Sunday having even less coverage than Saturday. We may see another rude early wake up in spots on Saturday morning as some nocturnal storms could pop up after midnight between Houston and the coast. Then I think we’ll see a summer pattern of mid to late afternoon isolated to scattered downpours resume.

Look for highs in the mid-90s, with a few isolated upper-90s possible.

Monday and Tuesday

We think things will be similarly subdued like Sunday to start next week. Rain chances certainly are not zero, but they’ll remain lower. Highs should again be in the mid-90s.

Midweek next week

We should see another boundary drop in or develop over the region around midweek next week. This should mean an increase in shower and thunderstorm coverage once again. Look for cooler daytime highs as a result.

Total rainfall between today and next week is likely going to be around 1 to 3 inches near the coast, with lesser amounts inland. Isolated higher amounts are possible anywhere in the area, and yes, some isolated places will see lower amounts too.

Tropics

The map currently favors us for the most part.

Of the activity out there today that we’re monitoring, only Invest 99L is worth keeping an eye on. No reliable model guidance is bringing it to the Gulf, but just out of respect for the calendar and history, it’s important to just check in and see if southern tracking waves like this one heading for the Caribbean can survive enough to get closer. Even if it were to do that, I’m not sure that the upper pattern would allow it to come north much, if at all. So either way, this probably ends up buried in Central America ultimately. But we’ll babysit it anyway. Other than that, you can continue to assume the brace position as we navigate the final 5 to 6 weeks of our peak hurricane season. We’re all just trying to get to the finish line.