Matt Lanza

Yesterday’s drought monitor update showed that drought has indeed expanded around the Houston area, rather significantly too.

Coverage of drought increased almost 10 percent, while coverage of extreme drought (Level 3 of 4) in the southern half of the region almost tripled week over week. We are still well behind 2011’s pace. At this point in 2011, the entire metro area was in level 4 of 4 (exceptional drought) compared to 0 percent today. But we are clearly in drought now, and it’s only going to get more extensive from here.

That said, we may get a little relief today!

Today

Today is beginning on a quiet, warm note once again. But there are actually some showers on radar in Louisiana, which indicates a weak little disturbance passing by. As that moves through our area today, we should expect to see at least a handful of showers or downpours develop. Let’s be fair here: Rain chances are only about 20 to 30 percent, but it’s the highest they have been recently and the highest they will be for a while to come.

There’s a better chance you won’t see rain today than you will, but at least there’s a chance. Aside from that, expect mid to upper 90s with sun, clouds, and a touch of Saharan dust still.

Saturday and Sunday

For the weekend, the good news is that if you’re planning anything for Father’s Day or Juneteenth celebrations, you probably won’t get rained on. The better news is that the Saharan dust will be outta’ here as well. So it will look a bit less hazy outside.

Of course, we stand a really good chance at finally breaching the 100 degree mark officially this weekend (yes, many of you already have reached this point but IAH has not), particularly on Sunday. Either way, it looks hot.

Next week

More of the same. 100 degree chances are with us Monday and maybe Tuesday with very slim to no rain chances. Atmospheric moisture levels look rather low most of next week, so I don’t expect much if any rainfall for most of the week.

Temperatures may actually bottom out on Tuesday or Wednesday. With a rebuilding ridge toward the end of the week, we may actually see our hottest weather of summer so far. More on that Monday. Whether it’s 98 or 102 next week, it’s just going to be hot.

Nothing out there we need to monitor for the tropics at this time.

I’ll leave on a quick note: If you missed Eric’s post yesterday, version 1.5 of the Space City Weather app is now available, and we encourage you to upgrade and inform us of any bugs you encounter. Thank you as always for your support.

We managed 99 degrees officially again on Monday in Houston, but you may have noticed at least a little less humidity around that peak heating. It’s not much but it does help. So does air conditioning. Your author got his back before Monday afternoon, so we’ll call that a win.

Anyway, the hot weather will continue and so will the dust.

Today

Look for another day with clouds, haze, and sun. We should be able to shave a degree or two off yesterday’s 99 degrees, so look for something more in the mid to upper-90s. Another burst of Saharan dust arriving today should help us double down on the hazy conditions and poor air quality. If you are asthmatic or are sensitive to poor air quality, it would be a good idea to limit outdoor time as much as possible the next few days.

Wednesday through Friday

Of the next few days, only Friday carries something above a 10 percent chance of a shower. Look for sun, clouds, and continued Saharan dust, likely at its worst on Thursday.

High temperatures will continue in the mid to upper-90s, with lows in the 70s and 80s. Those Friday rain chances stand at around 20 percent, so a few locations could see a welcome shower or downpour but most will not.

The Saharan dust event should end on Friday, with better air quality and less haze for the upcoming weekend.

Weekend into next week

More of the same. The weak backdoor cold front (a front that comes out of the northeast…from Louisiana) that we were looking at on Sunday looks to get held up to our east. Truthfully, I just don’t see anything better than 20 percent rain chances on any given day into the middle of next week. Highs will be well into the 90s each day.

Tropics

The National Hurricane Center continues to outline this area in the Caribbean for a chance at development over the next 5 days.

This is not a concern for Texas, and it’s rather easy to explain why. Our weather pattern over the next week (and beyond) will continue to be dominated by this fluctuating ridge of high pressure in the upper atmosphere over the Central U.S. As this system waxes, wanes, waxes, and moves around, one thing stays true: It stays in a position to basically shield Texas from any tropical nonsense right now.

This is both good and bad. It’s good because we could use a year off from hurricane risks. It’s bad, however, because it is likely going to cause the drought across much of Texas to expand and intensify. We could use a little surge of tropical moisture for a couple days. It appears we’re not going to line things up correctly.

Will this heat ever end?

This brings me to the last point today: Many of you are asking when this abnormally hot weather will end. Texas is always hot in summer, but we’re running consistently above average right now, more like July than June. The honest answer is that I have absolutely no idea when this will end.

We’re getting ourselves into a bit of a pickle right now, with a stubborn weather pattern that keeps reinforcing itself over the Plains. Just look at that loop above and you’ll see this. There’s a saying in meteorology that “drought begets drought,” as patterns can occasionally start acting on feedback loops. More dry air, more dry soil, more dry air, more heat, more dry air, etc. I see absolutely nothing right now that would act as a catalyst for change, so we may be stuck in this morass for the rest of June at least, if not longer. We’ve been telegraphing this for a couple months now, but prepare to hear more about drought, burn bans, and maybe more in the weeks ahead. Things can always change, of course, but we’ve got little data to predict change right now.

Well, we failed to officially hit 100 degrees in Houston this weekend, instead topping out with a pair of 99s on Friday and Sunday, sandwiching a 98 in there on Saturday. The heat will continue this week, though we’ll likely shave at least a couple degrees off things. That makes your author happy because, conveniently, the Lanza household is dealing with a partial AC outage this morning. Yay.

Monday and Tuesday

More of the same, really. Sun, some clouds, and highs in the mid to upper 90s. Rain chances aren’t zero, but they’re awfully close.

We are already seeing some Saharan dust in the area, and as we move into Tuesday, it will become a bit thicker as another surge of dust arrives in Texas. That may subside a bit on Wednesday morning before additional dust later Wednesday and on Thursday. Look for haze, less blue sky, and maybe some more interesting sunrises and sunsets. Those of you that have respiratory ailments that flare up when these hit should be ready for a couple unpleasant days.

Wednesday

Our next reasonable chance of at least some rainfall comes on Wednesday. If you’re choosing cities for your fantasy rainfall battles on Wednesday, I would probably still skip Houston, but the chance is closer to 10 percent than zero. Look for mid-90s. Southerly winds will continue around 10 to 15 mph, gusting 20 to 25 mph at times.

Thursday and Friday

We have a bit of a mixed bag to close the week. For now, I’d expect temperatures to bounce back a degree or two, with highs in the upper 90s for the most part. Rain chances remain at a paltry 10 to maybe 20 percent on Friday.

You can see that expected rainfall over the next 7 days continues to look abysmal. That said, I do think a couple locations may do better than what is shown here, so we’ll hold out hope that some of us get lucky.

Beyond Friday

The weekend gets a little more interesting at least. We will have strong high pressure anchored over Kansas, which is a bit farther north than what we dealt with this weekend. This will allow for continued hot weather, yes, but there may be some “noise” that can sneak in underneath the high.

So I would say that rain chances may actually improve a bit this weekend into early next week. There are some signs of a weak “backdoor” cold front trying to slide in from Louisiana on Sunday or Monday thanks to a pretty strong trough in the atmosphere along the East Coast. Whether that gets here or not is TBD, but just having that in the neighborhood may be enough to trigger some scattered downpours at least.

Bottom line: Rain chances look better this weekend, though still not especially high, and it will remain quite hot.

Tropics

The National Hurricane Center is outlining an area in the western Caribbean for possible development this week.

While this probably is something to at least monitor, I don’t think there is a lot of concern about this here. With that very strong ridge over the Central U.S., that argues that whatever happens there will likely stay suppressed to our south. Still, we will keep an eye on things just in case.

Summer will continue to tighten its grip on Houston this weekend with at least 3 straight days of near-100 degree temperatures ahead. On average, our first 100 degree day isn’t until mid-July. Many years don’t see one at all. In fact, our last 100 degree day was August 29, 2020 on the backside of Hurricane Laura. We’ll see if we break through this weekend.

Drought continues to be a notable topic. While it’s been hot quite early, this setup remains very unlike 2011, so let’s not use that as a comparison. Some other drought years in the 80s and 90s are probably more applicable comparisons. Drought coverage actually improved statewide over the last week, thanks to some showers and storms in West Texas. East Texas saw drought begin to expand again. In the Houston area, we were up about 10 percent week over week.

Harris County is now almost fully covered by drought, with some severe drought now taking hold across the southeast third and nearly all of Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston Counties. Extreme drought expanded this week to cover portions of Brazoria, Matagorda, Wharton, Chambers, and Jackson Counties. With no meaningful rain likely over the next week and 100 degree weather, it’s safe to assume this will expand further next week.

Today through Sunday

As noted above, expect sunshine and heat on repeat. It will be near or above 100 degrees inland each day, in the 90s at the coast, and all locations will see 70s to low-80s each morning. Please do take it easy this weekend, as our bodies are not acclimated to this sort of high summer heat yet. Heat advisories are a virtual guarantee this weekend.

Early next week

The large area of high pressure over Texas helping to fuel the heat this weekend will begin to slip eastward on Monday and Tuesday. This will at least open the Gulf up a little bit for some daytime sea breeze thunderstorms. While rain chances still look rather pathetic and no better than 10 to 20 percent each day, it’s still a bit better than it has been. Because the core of the heat does pull away, this should allow us to “cool” back into the mid or upper-90s for highs each day with nighttime lows still in the 70s to near 80 degrees.

Later next week

Another area of high pressure is going to surge into the southern Plains for the end of next week.

This one looks to anchor a little farther north than the one we see this weekend. While this will likely keep the door cracked open for some sea breeze storms each day, again, chances look rather low and temperatures may creep up another degree or two.

Bottom line: Excessively hot and humid for June over the next week, with heat peaking today through Sunday. A little “less hot” next week with non-zero rain chances (but still low). Maybe hotter toward next weekend again with continued generally low rain chances. The next 2 weeks of rainfall anomalies per the European ensemble model?

Ugly.

Tropics

Some models do continue to try and put a disturbance in the Bay of Campeche late next week, but no reliable model develops it into anything organized at this point. So nothing for us to worry about out there or on the horizon.