Matt Lanza

In brief: A cool front today will bring a smattering of showers or a few thunderstorms to Houston, followed by continued warm but slightly less warm weather this weekend. A much stronger front aims at us for late Monday or early Tuesday, ushering in what we hope will be a spectacular Thanksgiving Day.

Good morning! Hang on one second, I think Josh Allen just got sacked again. Yep. Can confirm.

Annual Fundraiser

Black Friday is a week away, and our annual fundraiser is in the final stretch! We’ve been fortunate to have a fairly quiet weather year in Houston for a change. Still, we’ve got some fun holiday gift options that are uniquely Houston. Or you can just throw in a couple bucks if you’re able. Eric and I deliberately keep our fundraising for the site limited and confined to November so we can focus the rest of the year on information, content, and improvements to our operation for you. We know everyone has a personal budget for what news and information outlets they support, and we are so grateful and thankful to have your support.

Dang, has it been warm!

Yesterday was our 9th consecutive day of 80 degrees or more. We hit 86 degrees officially at Bush Airport, a new record for the date, breaking the previous record of 84 degrees set in 2011 and 1977. That’s now the third record high we’ve matched or beaten in this stretch.

I went back and looked at November and wintertime streaks of 80 degrees or more, and this now ranks as the sixth longest streak of 80 degrees or hotter in the November through February timeframe.

The last comparable streak of this length occurred last November when we did 13 days in a row to start the month of November. But a streak of this length this late in the year has only occurred one other time: December 2021-January 2022 when we hit 85 degrees on New Year’s Day during a 9 day streak.

So will we threaten the 13 day record? We probably won’t break it, but we may tie it. It should be at least 11 straight after today and tomorrow. But Sunday is the wild card day with a forecast high right on the fence of 80 degrees. Monday should warm back into the low 80s ahead of the front before we wipe it out completely Tuesday or Wednesday. Hopefully the Texans can string together more wins like we’re doing with 80s.

Today

As a meteorologist, you’d think we’d like good forecasting challenges. And most of us do. However, the story of the disturbance today has been rather maddening. Maybe it’s because we went from 2 to 4 inches of rain forecast earlier this week to NyQuil dose accumulations. Capital N, little y…. There is an expression in meteorology “When in drought, keep it out,” meaning rainfall chances. A lot of times modeling can get overzealous with rain risks in drought-y patterns. There’s a persistence to that kind of pattern. That said, we’re already also seeing some forecast “nudges” next week now too. But clearly models are struggling to handle this pattern in the lower latitudes over North America right now.

Anyway, here’s how today should unfold. Radar is mainly quiet for now with a couple showers up near Navasota and Huntsville. Scattered showers and a couple embedded thunderstorms will develop late this afternoon or early this evening across the area, probably near a Cleveland-Cypress-Wharton line. They will slowly crawl south and east overnight, perhaps lingering near coastal areas or down toward Freeport and Lake Jackson on Saturday morning.

The rain totals will be quite erratic with some places seeing perhaps 1 to 2 inches of rain, while most languish at a quarter inch or less.

Weekend

This weekend looks fairly benign. I don’t want to say we won’t see any rain at all; we could see lingering showers near the coast on Saturday and an isolated rogue shower, especially north and west of Houston on Sunday. But overall, any disruption to your plans should be minimal. As noted above, look for 80s on Saturday and around 80 or so on Sunday. Slightly cooler air filters in, so morning lows may be in the low 60s or even some upper-50s in outlying areas Sunday morning.

Monday & Tuesday

Things change more substantially early next week. A legitimate cold front is still on track to push through the area on late Monday or early Tuesday. We do expect more numerous or widespread showers and thunderstorms with this front compared to what we see today. That said, the forecast is by no means set in stone. We’ll reassess and update Sunday or, of course, Monday. Either way, look for a drop off in temperatures behind the front.

Wednesday

Good weather for travel it would appear! We kick off the holiday weekend with cooler temperatures, as highs will only be in the upper 60s to low 70s after morning lows in the 50s. Wednesday does look breezy as well, so just note that, particularly if your early holiday weekend plans include a boat.

Thanksgiving Day

Houston isn’t exactly known for nice weather on holidays. We lean on gallows humor to get through them. However, it looks spectacular on Thanksgiving as it stands right now. Morning lows should be in the 40s and 50s, so dress appropriately for one of the many turkey trots around the area. I will say, overnight modeling is trying to back off on this — again. So the map below may be optimistic on the cool side.

Highs will be in the 60s. Friday and the rest of the weekend looked good as of yesterday, but this morning the European model is trying up rainfall chances a bit. I’ll remain skeptical for now. Enjoy the weekend!

In brief: Near record high temperatures will settle in over Houston, along with a burst of high humidity early next week. Our next front is penciled in for Thursday, with a good chance of much needed thunderstorms showing up in the current forecast.

Bush Airport hit 83° yesterday, 3 off the record of 86° set 20 years ago. Today’s record of 89° looks pretty safe as well. But get used to these low to mid-80s because they’re going to be with us over the next 5 or 6 days.

Today through Sunday

The next three days will be cut from the same cloth. Expect sun, some clouds (especially in the morning, along with perhaps some patchy fog), and warm, humid conditions. We’ll probably do low to mid-80s today and tomorrow and more firm mid-80s on Sunday. An isolated sprinkle or two can’t be entirely ruled out, as well as some drizzle in areas with morning fog. I’m mainly mentioning that because we don’t want to be told that we mist the forecast.

Monday and Tuesday

We really dig in on the humidity here. That may be the only thing that prevents us from hitting the upper-90s. Gulf moisture starts to pool over the area, allowing dewpoints to push closer to 70° at times, while precipitable water, or the amount of available moisture in the atmosphere goes from about 1 inch or so on Sunday to 1 to 1.5 inches Monday to 1.5 to 1.75 inches Tuesday.

More humid air heats up slower than dry air, so there’s probably a functional limit to how warm we can realistically get Monday and Tuesday. Some model guidance is very bullish, pushing us close to 88 degrees, but I think we’ll settle in the 84 to 86 degree range away from the coast most days, close enough to threaten or break records but not outlandishly hot for mid-November. An isolated shower is possible Monday with a slightly better chance for isolated showers on Tuesday. Most folks will remain dry, but some will see a passing shower.

Later next week

Models are settling on Thursday as cold front day next week. While this looks like a quick moving system, it does look like it will be fairly moisture-laden, which is good because we need rain. Severe drought coverage expanded from 23 percent to 35 percent in the Houston area week over week based on yesterday’s drought monitor report.

We continue to see extreme drought bubbling up west of Sealy and Wharton. So any rain will be welcome. Thursday’s front looks interesting on some model guidance in that it may have some element of severe weather risk. It’s too early to speculate much but the basic ingredients seem to be in place. Bottom line? Expect a cold front on Thursday that could perhaps be accompanied by some noisy thunderstorms and locally heavy rain. More to come.

Behind that front, much cooler weather arrives, though at this point it looks to fall short of what we saw earlier this week. Expect highs in the 60s and low 70s with lows in the 40s and 50s most likely. We will continue to fine tune things a bit. At least it will be closer to average for November.

Fundraiser

Our annual fundraiser continues, and we want to thank all that have purchased items or contributed to the site. Your support ensures that we can provide quality information year-round, in the good weather times, and in the inevitably bad weather times. For more information on how to donate or purchase merchandise, please visit this page. Thank you so much again for your support!

In brief: Get ready for a wild ride in the temperature department. Houston will threaten our all-time November high temperature tomorrow before a cold front knocks 20 degrees off things for Sunday, followed by morning lows in the 30s and 40s. Don’t get too comfortable because 80s should return later next week.

Today & Saturday

The main story the next two days will be temperatures. Hot temperatures. Typical early November daytime highs are in the mid-70s. We’ll easily jump 10 to 15 degrees above that today and Saturday. Can we do our first official 90 degree November day on record? If I were in Vegas, I would take the under, but not by much. My guess is we hit 86 to 88 today and 87 to 89 tomorrow at IAH.

Upper air temperatures do support highs as close to 90 as we’ll ever see in November, so the chance is definitely there. Either way, it will be close to a record for the date (89 both days). Dewpoints crept back into the mid-60s on Thursday. Look for more of that today and tomorrow, with a chance for dews to get into the 70s (very humid) tomorrow night ahead of the front.

Sunday

The cold front itself should hit the Houston area between about 2 to 6 AM on Sunday, give or take. It will come with perhaps a handful of light showers, especially south and east of the city. But for the most part the only way you’ll know is by the increase in wind. Wind gusts of 25 to 30 mph, with a few 35 mph gusts as well are likely Sunday and Sunday night. This won’t be quite as windy as the front that hit us right before Halloween but you will notice it out there.

As far as temperatures go, Sunday will be interesting. We may see temps drop for a few hours on Sunday morning after sunrise before stabilizing and warming back to near 70 degrees Sunday afternoon. Either way, it will be roughly 15 to 20 degrees cooler on Sunday than it will be Saturday, so break out the pumpkin spice latte. Have some weight to stabilize your Texans tailgate canopies in the breezy conditions and perhaps a light jacket before the game against the Jags. It’ll be sunny otherwise.

Monday and Tuesday

More sun Monday and Tuesday. It appears that the coldest morning will be Tuesday, with the best combination of clear skies and light winds.

We should see numerous 40s everywhere on Monday and then 40s with many upper-30s peppered in on Tuesday morning. Tuesday’s record low of 32 degrees seems comfortably safe for Houston, but a few spots could push the freezing mark well outside of the Metro area. Highs on Monday may not even get much past 60 degrees in spots. Time to get up the Christmas lights.

Beyond Tuesday

If you thought this was it, that this was winter arriving for the season, Charlie Brown would like a word.

You are probably going to be surprised to know that high temperatures may push back into the low to mid-80s by late next week. If they don’t hate you already, I assure you that your sinuses will hate you by next weekend.

In brief: The coolest morning since spring has brought crisp conditions to Houston today! Look for more of that tomorrow. A chance of showers will disrupt the forecast on Saturday, but additional pleasant fall weather should follow Sunday through Tuesday. We may then see a more significant warm up in temperatures later next week.

Apologies for the delay on this. I was a little absent-minded this morning and forgot I switched with Eric, who unlike myself actually runs on cool mornings! For those that have been waiting for this, congratulations! One of the five warmest Octobers on record in Houston has saved its most crisp weather for the end. Temperatures this morning were in the 40s and low 50s everywhere. Here’s a map of all places that clocked in at or below 46 degrees (because I can’t get the filter to sit at 45 degrees):

Some cool things to note on the map above are the presence of the urban heat island, where most areas inside the Beltway ended up closer to 50 degrees, as well as the influence of the Gulf and Galveston Bay, which moderates temperatures warmer near the coast.

Anyway, the good news is that we’ll have some delightful weather today, with much less wind.

Today and Friday

Look for ample sunshine today and tomorrow. High temperatures will peak near 70 today and probably in the mid-70s tomorrow. Humidity will remain low, and there will be generally light winds, except at the immediate coast today. Morning lows on Friday should be fairly similar to this morning.

Saturday

The one forecast hiccup comes Saturday. A weak reinforcing cool front is going to move in from the north. As it does so, we’ll see an increase in clouds and some scattered showers. Not everyone will see rain on Saturday. But at least scattered coverage and a few isolated thunderstorms seem likely. After morning lows in the 50s, look for daytime highs in the 70s.

Sunday

The air mass behind this front will be less potent than what we’re currently seeing. Look for lows in the upper-40s and low-50s on Sunday. Winds will be notable, but a good 10 mph or more lower than what we saw on Wednesday. Gusts of 20 to 30 mph will be possible, especially along the immediate Gulf coast. Other than the breeze, expect sunshine.

Next week

Quiet weather locks in for most of next week it appears. Temperatures will begin to warm up with highs in the low-70s Monday, mid-70s Tuesday, and near 80 on Wednesday. Warm weather may linger deep into next week or weekend.

It does look like the first half of November may pick up where October left off last week. I anticipate we will see a front or two sneak in eventually, but in general, warmer and drier than normal weather is expected to dominate the front half of November.