Matt Lanza

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.

Houston has occasionally endured some painful Memorial Day weekend weather. This year will not be one of them. We expect sunshine, with highs in the upper-80s to low-90s each day and lows mainly in the 70s. Today should be the hottest day of the next several, but the humidity will increase this weekend.

Yes, there is a small chance for a pop-up shower, especially Monday, but consider yourself lucky, should you see one. Wear sunscreen, stay hydrated, and enjoy the weekend if you can. Feel free to unplug the weather button for a few days. We will be doing just that ourselves.

Rest of next week

After the holiday on Monday, we see onshore flow and at least a chance for a few afternoon showers each day, typical summer weather. As of now, there’s nothing out there that looks particularly concerning or bothersome, so we’ll turn it down a notch until Tuesday and come back at you refreshed and ready to tackle early summer!

While this weekend is reserved to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, we do also want to express our gratitude to all men and women who have helped defend our nation over the years. Thank you for your service.

Averaging the temperature recorded in Houston (at Bush Airport) from May 1 through yesterday would give us the hottest front 19 days of May on record back to the 1890s. It’s probably not terribly surprising. We will begin to see things change this weekend, however, and it can’t come soon enough.

The drought situation has not changed much in the Houston area since last week. We still see extreme drought creeping in across Wharton, Matagorda, and Brazoria Counties. It’s really the entire state of Texas that needs some help right now. Almost 30 percent of the state is classified as being in “exceptional” drought, the most coverage of that classification since early 2012, as we were coming out of the 2011 drought.

Our chance for help both locally and statewide is about to kick into gear. But it’s a bit of a tenuous story. I’ve been watching this wet pattern closely, and we started to see the European ensemble model backpedal a bit yesterday, taking us from about 2″ above normal the next 10 days or so down to 1″ above normal. While that may not sound like a huge change, this will go a long way toward relaxing drought, and any cutting back on that would not be great news. So, fingers crossed that the next week or so performs.

Today

The weather remains on autopilot for one more day: Sun, clouds, high humidity, and temperatures in the 90s. Winds will be up a bit today compared to recent days, with some 15 to 25 mph gusts possible. Perhaps that will help make it a bit less painful.

Most of us should stay dry, but perhaps a stray shower or storm could impact areas west of Houston later this afternoon.

Saturday

We should not see any significant weather changes tomorrow, but we may notice a few additional clouds. It should not be much cooler. In fact, with a cold front moving into Texas on Saturday but coming up short of Houston, that may actually allow for a little additional onshore flow or “compressional heating” ahead of the front, which could allow us to squeeze an extra degree or two out of the air tomorrow. Shower chances look minimal during the daylight hours right now. There may be a slightly better chance at storms tomorrow night, especially north of I-10.

Sunday

The big changes should really kick in on Sunday. The front will likely come up just short of Houston, but it will be close enough to the area to allow for numerous showers and storms to develop through the day on Sunday. Timing exactly where and when these will hit your backyard is impossible to do right now, but we believe most areas will see at least some rain at least once or twice on Sunday. And with a very, very humid air mass in place, any rain that does fall could be heavy, so keep alert for some localized street flooding if you’ll be out and about.

With rain and clouds, look for upper-80s or low-90s Sunday at best.

Monday & Tuesday

Weather modeling seems to agree that Monday may be a bit of a “down” day in terms of rain chances. So we may just see a few showers around with a mix of clouds and some sun. Look for highs in the upper-80s.

Tuesday should see another disturbance or two swing into the area, and that means that rain chances will probably trend up for that day. Look for scattered to numerous showers and storms with highs in the mid-80s. Again, any rain could be heavy.

How much rain through Wednesday morning? There will be a very wide variability with some places seeing an inch or less and others likely seeing 2 or 3 inches or even more. Consider this map an average, but you can clearly see we’re expecting a good bit of beneficial rain through Tuesday.

One other quick note: An early season Saharan dust cloud will work into our area on Tuesday into Wednesday, so you may see a hazier, dirtier looking sky in between storms. This isn’t uncommon in early summer, but it is a bit early for a dust event of this magnitude based on my experience. I would not read into it meaning anything in particular, however, as I don’t believe there’s any established correlation between early season dust and the upcoming hurricane season.

Later next week

Questions begin to arise later next week as to whether we can keep this wetter pattern going with daily shower and storm chances, or if things dial back a bit. Based on the latest data, I would expect a healthy chance of rain again on Wednesday before storm chances diminish a good bit on Thursday and Friday.

Memorial Weekend looks pretty good right now. Lower-end rain chances may build back in on Sunday or Monday, but as of now, it’s nothing too serious. We’ll keep tabs on it, but at this point, I would say at least 60 percent of the weekend looks great. It will be hot and humid, of course, with highs likely around 90 or a bit hotter. More next week!

Another day of upper-80s and low-90s across the area on Thursday. And much more to come. The U.S. Drought Monitor update was released yesterday. It did show slight improvement in and north of Houston, mostly in the Brazos Valley. However, drought classified as “extreme” (level 3 of 4) continues to expand now across Matagorda County and portions of Brazoria and Wharton Counties.

I expect this will expand a little bit next week and then, depending on how next weekend goes, possibly even more the week after. The weather pattern across Texas continues to look abnormally hot for mid-May and also quite dry. Soil moisture continues to dry out, especially in coastal and south Texas this month. We still have time to stave off a potentially bad drought situation in Texas for the summer, but we really need a system or two to come through and give us a widespread rain. Perhaps there is some hope next weekend or beyond, but as Eric noted yesterday, our confidence in that occurring is not particularly high. So it goes.

Today through Sunday

Some slightly drier air has allowed us to turn a good bit cooler this morning, with lows in the 60s. It actually feels…nice? Whatever the case, it likely won’t last more than a few hours. The Friday through Sunday period will just be sun, sun, sun. Lather up with the SPF-a-lot and try to keep cool this weekend. Look for highs in the low to mid-90s and lows in the 70s. Each subsequent morning heading into next week looks just a little warmer and a little more humid. Certainly not as pleasant as this morning. We’re firmly into June/July-type weather.

Could it rain this weekend? Yes, if you’re lucky, you may see a shower or downpour, particularly on Saturday. I’m not expecting miracles, but don’t be too shocked if you see a passing shower or two.

Monday through Thursday

Each subsequent day looks to get just a little hotter. We’ll be firmly into July/August-type temperatures by midweek with highs likely in the mid-90s, if not hotter in some spots. Lows will be in the 70s, if not the upper-70s. And we continue to look sunny.

There’s just no meaningful relief in sight. A shower or two is possible on a day or two here or there, but again, you would be fortunate to see that.

Next weekend & tropics?

We continue to at least see hints of change coming next weekend. That could be via a cold front or passing disturbance that brings a day or two of higher rain chances. We’re not confident in exactly what it is we see just yet, but most models show at least some kind of change in things for a couple days. I’m not sure it will be quite enough to tilt the scales toward meaningful, lasting change though, as most models bring heat right back after that system exits.

I’ll close by saying that there have been a few social media accounts pushing out model data that shows a rogue tropical storm or hurricane in the Gulf on like forecast day 15 or so. Models (this one in particular, the GFS) generally do show these early season “scareicanes,” but they essentially never come to fruition, at least as shown. While, yes, we could always get tropical activity in the Gulf in late May, it would be highly unlikely to see a significant storm this early. Your best bet is tune that nonsense out. We’ll let you know if anything looks like it could realistically impact our area. It does not at this time.