Cold weather across Texas this morning—winter’s last breath?

Our run of lovely, spring-time weather will continue through the weekend before rain chances return early next week, including the possibility of some thunderstorms. Texas won’t be this cold again for some time.

Thursday

Lows this morning fell into the upper 40s for inland areas of Houston, and even Galveston is going to get down to around 60 degrees. Given the warmth of the Gulf of Mexico already this season, barring a very strong cold front later this month or early in May, I suspect Thursday morning’s lows will be the region’s coldest until late October or November.

This may be Texas’ coldest morning until late October or early November. (Weather Bell)

We’ll have another splendid day today, with highs near 80 degrees, and another cool night with temperatures just a couple of degrees warmer than Thursday morning.

Friday through Sunday

Mostly sunny skies will prevail through the weekend, along with highs in the upper 70s to 80 degrees. The only really noticeable change will be a rise in humidity, beginning later Friday or early Saturday, that will bring overnight lows up from the mid-50s on Friday morning to around 70 degrees by Sunday night. Enjoy.

(Space City Weather is sponsored this month by The Mole, a Jonathon Price novel.)

Early next week

Beginning later Monday or Tuesday the remains of what once was a strong cold front will trail into the region, bringing some lift and increasing rain chances. These showers and potentially thunderstorms may linger into Tuesday night or Wednesday, but accumulations don’t look too extreme—perhaps 0.5 to 3.0 inches of rain. Probably the best chance of heavier rain will come to the north-northwest of Houston, with lesser amounts closer to the coast.

Easter weekend

There’s no real strong signal in the forecast yet for conditions on Easter weekend. There’s a non-zero chance of a cold front sweeping through the region during the second half of next week and clearing conditions out, but for now I think the safest bet is probably a forecast of partly cloudy skies, highs of around 80 degrees, and lows in the upper 60s. At this point moderate to heavy rains seem unlikely, but confidence is fairly low.

Posted at 6:50am CT on Thursday by Eric