Storms are absolutely hauling their way into the Houston area tonight, faster than most of us expected earlier today. Good news, as you’ll see below. But they are intense. Rain is falling at a rate of 3 to 4 inches per hour on average in that intense red portion of the line bowing across Rosenberg, Cinco Ranch, and Cypress at 9:45 P.M.
Intense storms with torrential rains were moving into the Houston area at 9:45 P.M. Tuesday (RadarScope)
These types of rain rates will almost certainly produce street flooding across many parts of the region through Midnight, spreading east and south.
In addition, there have been multiple tornado warnings issued with these storms, including one storm that may have well produced a tornado just north of Brookshire earlier. Stay alert and aware, and seek shelter if a tornado warning is issued in your area. As of this writing, there is a tornado warning for the northwest side of the city through 10:15 P.M. Even with no tornado, strong, damaging winds are possible.
So, some good news about all this at least: That the storms are moving quickly is positive because, while it’s going to rain much of tonight, the super-intense, “floody” 2 to 4+ inch per hour rates will be short-lived over a given area. We can manage a steady rain. It’s when you get that overly intense stuff for more than an hour or two that things get out of hand.
Beyond tonight? Truthfully, I don’t have a great feel on what to expect tomorrow at this point. I think some of that will depend on how these storms evolve over the next several hours, and what happens back to our west overnight. Some models redevelop storms in parts of the area. Others give us a nice break between storm chances. It’s a tough call right now, so you’ll need to be fairly flexible and adjust with the forecast tomorrow. We do know that there will be more storms, but how intense and exactly where they hit matters a lot, and we just aren’t sure yet.
Eric will have an update on what’s happening here after midnight tonight.
Good evening. The Houston area has been mostly fortunate through this rain event so far. We’ve managed to avoid very high impact rains, though we all finally got doused this afternoon and evening. Still, rain totals, while impressive were mostly manageable, aside from pockets of street flooding.
Rain totals for the past two days over the Houston metro area through 7 PM Monday. To view and zoom around yourself, visit harriscountyfws.org (Harris County Flood Control)
You can see that the highest totals for the event so far are in northeast Harris County, where over 6 inches fell in about 3 hours today just east of Huffman. All told, we’re lucky. After 13″ of rain fell in extreme southwestern Wharton County yesterday, it was Jefferson County, Liberty County, and the Lake Charles area that were hammered today.
Areas east of Houston pummeled
18.03″. That’s how much rain fell today near Fannett in Jefferson County, just off exit 838 of I-10. This is at least the third, if not fourth time this area has had houses flood — since Harvey.
Over 17" recorded near Fannett, TX. This area cannot catch a break. Some homes flooded for the 3rd time since 2017.
Southeast Texas is vulnerable to floods, but what has happened in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area in recent years is something different, and as someone who knows several folks in that area, completely exasperating.
Radar estimated totals were north of 8 inches from Liberty into Jefferson County in East Texas. Similar totals fell locally on Lake Charles, LA as well. (RadarScope)
And if that were not enough, the Lake Charles area, which has just barely had time to move on from Hurricanes Laura and Delta was battered today as well.
The combination of 15″ of rain and debris clogged waterways and drains in the wake of the aforementioned storms has led to water in homes and businesses in Lake Charles.
Lake Charles saw 10 to 15 inches of rain or more today, causing widespread flooding in that storm weary city, in addition to a few tornado warnings. (Calcasieu Parish Police Jury)
Repetitive disasters have become a hallmark of Southeast Texas and Louisiana, and it requires folks like us continuing to call attention to it without sugar coating it as “that’s just what happens here,” the linkages to climate change, and the reality that we need to continue to implement and expand mitigation measures. Or this will continue unabated.
Right now, we have just to get through this week.
Rest of tonight
Good news. The rain is tapering off from northwest to southeast as I type this, and we do not expect much, if any new development of storms overnight.
Tuesday
That said, we could see a cluster of storms find its way into the area by early morning Tuesday, as one model in particular (the HRRR) believes. I do think if we were to see that happen, it would be progressive, meaning a quick 1 or 2 inches of rain and then out. Granted, the ground is now saturated, so any rain of intense magnitude will be capable of producing flash flooding. But a quick moving system would be acceptable in this pattern. Additional storms will be possible later tomorrow afternoon or evening, though to be quite honest, the details are really fuzzy still. Tuesday will require a good bit of “nowcasting,” which means watching trends and making short-fused 12 to 18 hour forecasts at a time. Eric will update you in the morning.
Rest of the week
This week is a marathon, and we’re not sprinting to the finish. Wednesday and Thursday continue to look like active days with a combination of slower moving storms and saturated soils possibly combining to cause issues. We’ll remain in a Stage 2 flood alert unless something changes.
Just to underscore: As we’ve seen the last two days, these systems are relatively unpredictable with anything more than modest lead time. They are also capable of easily producing 2 to 4 inches of rain in an hour for more than one hour, and that will cause problems. So we know the potential for considerable heavy rain and flooding exists, particularly as soils saturate through the week. We still cannot tell you exactly where and when that will occur. We’ll continue to ask for your patience as we help you navigate the rest of this week. Stay safe.
Our next post will be Eric’s usual post on Tuesday morning.
For the vast majority of the Houston area, today was pretty uneventful. Across Harris County, according to the Flood Control map, the max total was 1.64 inches along Buffalo Bayou at the Beltway. But as you went southwest along Highway 59, things escalated quite a bit. The max total in our region today was 13.47 inches (as of 3 PM) in Wharton County, just east of Ganado.
Total radar estimated rainfall today shows the 11 to 12 inches (which was actually too low) near the border of Wharton and Jackson Counties. Matagorda County and Bay City saw upwards of 3 to 5 inches or a bit more. (NOAA NSSL)
That wasn’t a typo. And a simple look at that map shows the problem and trouble with forecasting these types of events. You go from 13 inches just east of Ganado to about 5 inches in the town itself. Raise your hand if you expected 13 inches of rain in our regional neighborhood today. I sure didn’t. Neither did any weather model. But with these sorts of setups, this is exactly what can happen, and that’s one thing that makes forecasting in Southeast Texas so difficult sometimes. This is also why we’re being a little coy on details regarding this event. Because quite simply, they’re extremely difficult to predict, let alone try and communicate.
So the headline right off the bat here is that we are going to continue to tell you to expect us to activate our Space City Weather Flood Scale tomorrow. We remain unsure if it will start at Stage 1 or Stage 2, but Eric will update you in the morning on that. Likewise, the National Weather Service is holding off on Flood Watches for tomorrow given the uncertainty on how things evolve tonight. Which leads me to…
Tonight
What happens tonight? Well, the radar this evening still has a good bit of rain south of Houston. But the real ridiculous 2 to 4 inch per hour stuff seems to mostly be gone or pushing offshore.
The heaviest rain is slowly working its way to the coast and offshore south of Houston this evening, as of about 5 PM. (RadarScope)
There are some blobs of heavier showers east of Houston. And truth be told, that is the area I want us to watch closest tonight. One model in particular has been indicating that storms are going blow up after 3 or 4 AM along some lingering boundaries from today’s storms. And that would occur closer to Port Arthur or between Baytown and the Beaumont/Port Arthur area. So I would think that if we see heavy rain blow up again overnight, that would be the region to watch.
Tomorrow
Monday’s forecast will entirely dependent on what happens late tonight, so I’m just going to leave it at: There’s a good chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms tomorrow. Heavy rain is definitely possible. But the details are still very sketchy, and modeling disagrees on exactly who is at highest risk across Texas tomorrow. That said, we should see a little less chaotic weather tomorrow across the state than we have seen today (though the Panhandle will be at risk for some big storms).
Beyond tomorrow
Eric did a great job this morning summing up what I’d call the “known unknowns” of the forecast over the next several days. And to be honest, after digesting the models, not much has changed. That’s not terribly surprising. As I alluded to above, these types of patterns are notorious for being full of capricious details, and I fully expect certain modeled outcomes today to become outdated before too long.
The NWS forecast from Monday through late in the week calls for about 6 to 10 inches on average, with higher amounts very possible over smaller areas, much like occurred today. (NWS Houston)
The National Weather Service outlook for total rain the rest of the week is above. I would view this as an “average” outcome. On average, your backyard could see as little as 3 or 4 inches of additional rain, but more likely closer to 6 or 8 inches. And some places could see much more than that. Suffice to say, this forecast is challenging, and we’ll keep you posted throughout as things evolve. You’ll want to stay plugged into the forecast. Our next update will be our usual Monday morning update from Eric.
Well, we sure hope you got to enjoy the weather yesterday and hopefully today too. Mid-May fronts with cool, comfortable air masses feel like a rare treat. Our morning low of 62° at Bush Airport this morning is the coolest morning this late in the season since May 25, 2017 (60°). The humidity returns later today, tonight, and Saturday, and then rain chances will follow. Our area looks poised to enter into a prolonged unsettled weather pattern for at least least a week or so. Let’s walk through the forecast.
Today
Really, we will just have a nice day ahead today. Look for some sun after these morning clouds in spots dissipate. There will still be a fair number of clouds though this afternoon, and highs will be around 80° or in the low-80s, give or take.
Saturday
Saturday morning will start a bit warmer and a bit more humid than today or Thursday began. Morning lows will be in the 60s, if not 70° or so in most places. Look for a mix of clouds and maybe a bit of sun. If you have the option to choose between weekend days for outdoor plans, we would strongly suggest going with Saturday. While there will be a chance for some showers, mainly west or southwest of Houston, those chances are not especially high or long lasting. It will be warm and turn increasingly humid, with highs in the 80s.
Sunday into Monday
The forecast for Sunday is very challenging. This is mainly due to timing. The last couple days have seen the start time of rain slip in models from Saturday night to Sunday morning to now Sunday afternoon. What we know is that a disturbance is going to cross through our region, and it will likely bring most of us a period or two of showers and thunderstorms on Sunday through Monday.
We may have one area of rain Sunday morning and afternoon move into the area from the west. Rain may then taper off late on Sunday afternoon before another round fires up either Sunday night or Monday morning into afternoon. The exact timing is tricky, but we know most folks will see at least a little rain. You can see from the animation below how precipitable water or how much moisture is available in the atmosphere increases sharply through Sunday morning and afternoon, which will turn a slight rain chance into a fairly healthy one.
The amount of available moisture in the atmosphere steadily increases on Sunday from southwest to northeast across the area, meaning rain chances will build through the day. (Weather Bell)
Look for highs near 80° or in the low to mid-80s depending on exactly when it rains. Lows will be in the upper-60s to low-70s.
How much rain to expect Sunday and Monday? Always a difficult question to answer, but right now we could see a half-inch to inch on average with some localized places perhaps seeing as much as 2 to 3 inches of rain or even a bit more. Where those bullseyes occur is difficult to predict more than 12-18 hours out, so I won’t speculate on that this morning.
Rest of next week
The rest of next week will feature Texas under the influence of a pattern with lots of moisture around and several disturbances and a dreaded upper low passing across the state. That is a classic spring combination for periods of rain and thunderstorms. Why do I say “dreaded?” Because upper lows are notorious fickle and difficult to forecast. As the saying in meteorology goes “upper low, forecaster’s woe.”
Here’s what we know: The chance of rain will be high each day next week. But, it will not rain all day or perhaps even every day everywhere. More likely we’ll have a day with widespread, heavy thunderstorms separated by a day or two of more isolated or scattered activity. As of today, it appears that Sunday into Monday and later Tuesday into Wednesday have the highest odds of more widespread storms. But I’ve dealt with enough upper lows to tell you that this could easily move around, hence why we’re just blanketing each day next week with a rain chance. We’d expect rain chances to tail off a bit by next weekend.
The NOAA forecast of rainfall for the next week calls for about 1 to 3 inches on average, with highest amounts north. There will almost certainly be areas around Houston that see more than 3 inches of rain over the next week. (Pivotal Weather)
So how much rain should we expect next week? Well, it’s probably going to vary, widely. Some areas may see an inch or two, while other areas could easily see 4 to 6 inches of rain or even some more by Friday. On average, we would say about 1 to 3 inches should be expected. We don’t think those bigger ticket rainfall amounts will be especially widespread, and we don’t expect major flooding issues right now. But this is the type of forecast we’ll want to watch closely. If necessary, Eric and I will break out the flood scale, but it’s much too soon for that.
Meanwhile, we’ll do our best to try and isolate those heavier periods of rainfall that make travel difficult for you, and if we gain some confidence in those or rain amounts, we’ll also update this weekend.
