Good morning. Storms passed to the north of Houston on Wednesday evening, and the severe weather produced one particularly strong tornado that touched down just north of Huntsville and Livingston, striking the community of Onalaska hard. Meteorologists from the National Weather Service will investigate the location today to determine the intensity of the tornado and its path.
Local residents described the tornado as “devastating,” and at least three people were killed. As most of us went to bed last night, this small community was looking for lost people, assessing injuries, and finding temporary shelter outside their damaged or destroyed homes. Tornadoes this strong in the greater Houston region are rare, but possible. The following image shows the storm’s path as indicated by rotation on radar.
The entire Houston metro area will now settle into a much more sedate weather pattern, with sunny weather for days and days.
Thursday
A cool front is moving into Houston this morning, and this will help drop moisture levels today. This, in turn should help to clear skies by mid- to late-morning. Light winds will blow out of the north. This afternoon, high temperatures will reach the mid- to upper-80s under sunny skies. As the sun dips toward the horizon tonight, we’ll be in for a real treat as the drier air allows temperatures to drop into the 70s and then 60s overnight.
Friday
As the front washes out, winds will swing around to come from the south, and in concert with sunny weather high temperatures should spike up to nearly 90 degrees. This will be a warm day.
Saturday and Sunday
The arrival of another relatively weak cool front on Friday night will set the stage for a sunny, pleasant weekend. We should see light winds and highs in the low 80s on both weekend days. Lows Saturday night should be the coolest of the week, likely dropping into the 50s for northern parts of the region. This will be a fine, fine weekend—certainly one of the last during this spring when sunshine and highs in the low-80s will co-exist.
Next week
The down side of this sunny weekend is that areas of Houston that really need rainfall, particularly areas in Brazoria County and other coastal regions, will see none. Monday and Tuesday will provide no relief along these lines with rising temperatures and mostly sunny days. But some kind of front around next Wednesday should bring our next chance of widespread rainfall, and some cooler weather.
Will humidity stay down through the weekend?