Matt Lanza

Dreary for Houston the next few days, but warm

After the misery of last week, I think we can all agree that boring isn’t necessarily a bad thing, right? Well, the weather will be just that over the next few days, unless you find occasional fog, light showers, and warmer than normal temperatures exciting. And, hey, there’s nothing wrong with that if you do!

Today

Visibility is the main story this morning with a patchwork of mist and sea fog out there. Galveston is reporting a half-mile as of 5 A.M., while Ellington Field reports 10 miles of visibility and Katy/Brookshire reports 2 miles.

It’s a foggy morning on the Strand in Galveston. (Galveston.com)

Fog will probably persist near the coast for much of the day, though as is often the case with sea fog, it will likely wax and wane but never completely disappear.

There is a front draped across the northwest part of the area. It should grind to a halt over the Houston metro this morning before lifting back northwest tonight. A few showers will be possible around the area today, but as far as temperatures go, today is a bit challenging.

Temperatures as of 5:30 AM show a sharp dividing line northwest of Houston between 40s and 50s and 60s to near 70 degrees. This boundary will continue southeast and stall somewhere over Houston later this morning. (WeatherBell)

Temperatures behind the front will be a good 15 to 20 degrees cooler than temperatures ahead of the front. In the image above, you can see ample 50s and even some 40s this morning off to the north and west of the Houston area. Immediately ahead of the front it’s already close to 70 degrees. So depending on where that stalls today, it may mean the difference between shorts or hoodie weather. That dividing line will probably be close to US-59, but a 5 to 10 mile shift could mean a *big* difference in temperatures for a lot of people in Houston today.

Saturday & Sunday

As noted above, that front retreats to the north tonight, so for the most part, the weekend days look pretty similar for Houston: We’ll have more clouds than sun. We’ll have periods of dense fog, especially at the coast but possibly spreading inland at night and in the morning also. We could see a few showers or even a thunderstorm. The best odds for that will be north of I-10, where we could see a quarter-inch or so of rainfall through the weekend. Areas south of I-10 will see less. Morning lows should be in the 60s for most folks this weekend. High temperatures on both days will top off in the 70s in most places.

Monday

On Monday, a weak front moves back closer to our area, which should allow for some showers and storms to be scattered about. The front may be able to nudge past the area, which would allow for cooler, less humid weather to take hold for a bit, but that’s not etched in stone, and if you have plans on Monday you will want to check back with us then for info on any temperature changes or increased rain chances. For now, expect highs near 70 and temps perhaps dropping into the 60s and 50s by later in the day.

Rest of next week

We should see that front make a final push east of the area at some point Tuesday, followed by a stronger push of cooler, drier air Thursday. This will allow fog to dissipate and get us some nicer weather for a few days. No serious cold will follow, but temperatures will likely back into the 60s for highs and 40s for lows. More on this for you Monday.

The worst is behind Houston with one cold night left and 60s on the horizon

Good morning. We hope this finds you well today. If you are available to help out in the community, Crowdsource Rescue is looking for volunteers in the Houston area to deliver relief today to those that need some:

Here’s a quick roundup on some key issues:

Power: Nothing new that I have seen from ERCOT this morning, and CenterPoint is reporting all but 3,900 customers with power (as of 6:30 A.M.). We don’t expect a repeat of this week’s mess, but we’d encourage you to continue conserving power where you are able for another day.

Water: For the city of Houston, it sounds like a boil water notice will remain in effect through much of the weekend. There will be water distribution today for folks who are unable to boil. Many other communities are in similar situations right now, so please monitor your community’s social media feeds or websites for information on status and bottled water availability.

Roads: Only a handful of issues remain out there, but they do exist so please drive cautiously, especially the next few hours. Check Houston Transtar’s website for the latest road conditions.

On to the weather.

Today

We are beginning the day with a hard freeze across much of the region. Temperatures have bottomed out at 27° at both Bush and Hobby Airports, colder elsewhere.

A hard freeze is occurring this morning across the region, with temperatures in the 20s everywhere except the coast. (Weather Bell)

With the sun out in force today, look for temps to bounce back above freezing by 10 to 11 A.M., and our high temperature will likely push well into the 40s in much of the area.

Saturday

Tonight will be the last really cold night. Expect a light freeze in Houston and points south and east (though coastal and bayfront communities may just barely get below 40 for a brief time). Another hard freeze is possible north and west of Houston, though the hours spent that will be a little less tomorrow morning than they were today. Saturday should see ample sunshine again with a few more clouds by late day and highs well into the 50s to near 60 degrees.

Sunday & Monday

It will be downright balmy on Sunday morning, with low temperatures only in the upper 30s and low 40s, approaching 50 at the coast. We will have a good deal of cloud cover on Sunday, but that won’t stop temperatures from hitting the 60s!

Soak up every bit of Sunday’s high temperature forecast. (WeatherBell)

Now, a cold front will sweep through the region on Sunday night, but this will be of the kinder, gentler variety like we’ve seen most of winter here. No organized rain is expected, and we’ll see lows mainly in the upper-30s to low-40s and highs in the low-60s behind the front for Sunday night and Monday into Monday night.

Rest of next week

One thing we can say with some confidence is that it looks fairly warm next week. There’s a good chance we’ll see a day or two in the 70s, as well as milder nighttimes. There should be another modest cold front flirting with us on Thursday and Friday, but the details around that are a bit uncertain. But we would expect some rain with that system. More on Monday!

Hard freeze on the way tonight, as Houston nears the end of the cold wave

Good evening, everyone. We just want to freshen up the situation a bit for you this evening. Thank you to Eric for holding down the fort as I wrangled power, water, work, and children like so many of our readers the last couple days. I hope this finds you powered.

CenterPoint is still reporting about 15,000 customers without power. This means 99.5% of the Houston area should have power back now. Just over 350,000 customers are still without power across Texas, which is down from 620,000 this morning. Many of those are due to issues stemming from ice in recent days. Per ERCOT, we’re still in a tenuous situation, but it sounds a like things are much more stable than they have been.

So it goes. We encourage you to continue to conserve power so the overall situation continues to improve.

The water situation is still a bit difficult. A boil water notice continues in Houston and many other places.

The city of Houston is directing bottled water distribution through city council member offices, so we’d encourage you to reach out your representative’s office if you need access. As for other communities, please check their websites, social media feeds, etc. Various news media in the city have also put together lists for this.

If you or someone you know need something more urgently or can provide support to those that may have those needs, please utilize the Crowdsource Rescue website. This organization has been working tirelessly and doing great things.

I’d encourage our readers to drop any advice or information about other organizations doing important work through the freeze in the comments section.

On to the weather.

Tonight & tomorrow

It was nice to see the sun in much of the area today, and temperatures did push 40 degrees. Meanwhile, Del Rio saw 10 inches of snow. It’s been a weird, weird week, y’all.

Clear skies and diminishing winds will allow for another night of cold, cold temperatures.

Nighttime lows will be in the 20s for most areas away from the coast. (Weather Bell)

Nighttime lows will be in the 30s for Galveston, around 30 or upper-20s in the Bay Area and Chambers County, mid to upper 20s for the south side of Houston and Brazoria County, mid-20s north of Houston and Fort Bend County, and low-20s, with pockets of upper-teens possible in Montgomery County, Liberty County, and points north. Generally, the farther north and west you go, the colder it will be. Thus, a Hard Freeze Warning is in effect tonight for most of the region. Continue to keep pipes and plants fully protected, and make sure to check on people and bring pets inside.

The good news is that temperatures will recover quickly tomorrow. All areas should be back above freezing by late morning with full sunshine. Look for highs tomorrow to top out in the mid-40s in most places except the far northwest.

There will likely be another freeze tomorrow night, but temperatures will probably be about 3 to 6 degrees warmer than tonight. The finish line is in sight. I’ll have the latest on the rest of the forecast tomorrow morning, and I can almost promise to bore you to tears, which is exactly what I think we’re looking for right now.

Tracking how cold it will get tonight in Houston

We again want to express our best wishes and thoughts for so many of our readers, Houstonians, and Texans who are outright suffering tonight because of the combination of a true “tail event” and who knows what else happened with the power grid (which I sincerely hope is transparently communicated to Texans in the days and weeks ahead). Please, if you’re one of the fortunate ones tonight, check on anyone you know that may not be so fortunate.

That said, we are a weather blog first and foremost and we want to let you know about a couple things: How tonight’s forecast is tracking and an update on Wednesday’s storm.

How cold tonight?

We’ve been asking this question for days when it was apparent that tonight would be the main event for cold. So, we have a lot of models and data and whatnot, but let’s actually compare to data from the most recent comparable event: December 1989. On December 23 and December 24, 1989, Houston (Bush Airport) hit 7° and 11° respectively, close analogs to what we believe tonight’s low temperature will be. One way to check on how things are going is to track the temperature at Bush Airport hour by hour and compare to the hourly observations in those events, as well as the NWS point forecast from just before 8 PM this evening.

Hourly Temperatures at IAH Airport December 1989 vs. February 2021
12/23/1989 12/24/1989 2/15/2021 NWS Point Forecast
6:00 PM 19 24 21 21
7:00 PM 18 19 20 20
8:00 PM 16 16 19 17
9:00 PM 16 15 18 15
10:00 PM 15 14 14
11:00 PM 14 14 13
12:00 AM 13 12 12
1:00 AM 12 11 11
2:00 AM 11 12 11
3:00 AM 10 11 10
4:00 AM 10 11 9
5:00 AM 9 11 8
6:00 AM 7 11 8
7:00 AM 7 12 9
8:00 AM 8 15 12
9:00 AM 10 22 15
10:00 AM 14 27 18

Through 9 PM at least, we are coming up short of both nights from 1989 as well as the current forecast. All that said, it’s very early still, relatively speaking, and temperatures on nights like this can easily drop like a rock under the right conditions. So don’t read too much into what you see here just yet, but I felt this would be an interesting way of looking at things.

If you are unable to sleep or have too much time on your hands tonight (like me, probably) and you want to track our progress through the night, you can check out real-time IAH observations at this link.

(Editor’s note: Replace “IAH” in that link’s URL with whatever airport code you desire, if you’d like to track conditions at that location. Some local ideas? GLS for Galveston, HOU for Hobby, EFD for Ellington Field, LVJ for Pearland, SGR for Sugar Land, TME for the west side of Katy, DWH for Tomball, and CXO for Conroe. You must keep the “K” before those three letters though!)

Wednesday’s Storm

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Warning for Wednesday’s storm now.

A Winter Storm Warning has been posted for Wednesday’s storm for the counties shaded in pink, essentially from the City of Houston north and west. (NOAA)

Here’s what I can tell you confidently tonight:

  • The precipitation will fall as either plain rain or freezing rain. Sleet or snow are unlikely in our area.
  • Precipitation should break out around Midnight, give or take a few hours Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

Exactly who sees freezing rain vs. plain rain? That’s the forecast challenge right now, as shallow, dense cold air is not always easy to dislodge. If we look at the HRRR model forecast for tomorrow evening at midnight, you can see roughly where it predicts the freezing line to be located.

The HRRR model suggests that temperatures across most of the northern half of the Houston area will be below freezing when rain begins tomorrow night. (Weather Bell)

This is essentially just north of US-59 to Houston and east along or just south of I-10 to Port Arthur. The European model and NAM model are slightly warmer than this, and the GFS model is very similar to the HRRR. All models show temperatures getting above freezing by mid-morning or so Wednesday across the entire region. Expect at least a few hours of freezing rain in Houston, with a longer duration as you go north. Total icing may be as much as a glaze to a tenth of an inch across Harris County, with higher amounts possible as you go north into northern Liberty and Montgomery Counties and even more from Walker County northward. For most of us this shouldn’t be a “power outage” issue, but rather a travel one. Expect travel to become difficult to impossible north of I-10 or US-59 after midnight Tuesday night, but we will likely see improvement from south to north after sunrise.

Things could change, but that’s what it looks like right now. We want you to be aware and be smart about this next storm, so that’s why we have this here. Eric will have more for you in the morning. But right now, just focus on getting through tonight. Our thoughts are with you. Please stay safe.