One of my favorite sayings about Houston’s weather comes from Bill Read, a long-time meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service’s office in League City, who later served as director of the National Hurricane Center from 2008 to 2012. He characterized the morning humidity in Houston, during the summer, as “dog’s breath weather.” And with low temperatures only around 80 degrees this week, and dewpoints in the upper 70s, it will definitely feel like a dog breathing on your face in Houston for the time being. Other than that, there’s not much to say about Houston’s weather in the days ahead. It’s gonna be hot and humid.
Wednesday
Atmospheric moisture levels remain fairly high today, but with high pressure building in it will be difficult for that surface moisture to rise and produce rain showers. So while we’ll definitely see some clouds today, I think rain showers will be isolated at best. Highs should reach into the low- to mid-90s with lots of that aforementioned humidity.
Thursday and Friday
Hot and sunny. Need we say more? OK. Highs in the low- to mid-90s. Find some shade.
Saturday
By Saturday, the high pressure ridge dominating the second half of the work week’s weather should retreat back to the north, and this will open up slightly better rain chances. We probably are only looking at 20 percent chances, with very slight accumulations. Otherwise, skies should be mostly sunny with highs in the 90s.
Sunday
More moisture and more lift will lead to even better rain chances on Sunday—40 percent, maybe?—but again for the most part these should be nuisance showers rather than something to get really worked up about. Skies should be partly to mostly sunny otherwise, with highs in the low- to mid-90s.
Next week
Rain chances perk up next Tuesday or Wednesday, although forecast models generally hold totals under 1 inch for most of the area. Hard to have too much confidence, but at least we can take some comfort in the fact that high pressure isn’t going to set up shop for an extended period of time as happens sometimes during the summer in Houston.
When I was working at Boeing’s Houston campus a few years ago, we had a group of Seattle employees who’d relocated to H-town (they were refugees from Boeing’s Joint Strike Fighter program, which at the time had just trounced by Lockheed’s plane). They were mostly older guys who’d lived in the PacNW their whole lives, and I remember one engineer specifically who told me every year that July/August in Houston was his favorite season. I had a hard time believing him, because Seattle weather is IMO just about perfect and I’d love to live up there, but he insisted that after a lifetime of gray skies and wet winters and aching bones and shoveling driveways, these dog’s breath summers were exactly what he’d been looking for his entire life and he was in love with the climate.
I thought he was off his rocker, but it just goes to show that different folks like different things, and there’s a climate region for everyone.
As a fried of mine who grew up in Chicago and now lives here put it: “There are magical devices in my car, house and work that can keep me cold. Those dont exist yet to make the snow and ice disappear.”
It sometimes gets so cold in the Chicago area that refineries in the region have to reduce how much crude they can input, because the stuff gets too thick to pump out of the on-site storage tanks. Even though the tanks are insulated, it’s not enough when the temps go to 10 below with 10-30 mph winds
Coming from Illinois, I used to get asked what I thought of the heat and humidity down here. I would reply that it gets just as hot and humid up there only not for so long. Indeed, the August day that I moved the heat index was something like 110 in Illinois and when we arrived on the Gulf Coast it was only 100.
As for Seattle, my first trip up there (to Everett coincidentally) was on the day of the Summer Solstice. After meetings had concluded, I was free to wander around a bit and did so. It was a beautiful day: sunny and maybe just a few degrees above 80 with no noticeable humidity. It was such a pleasant contrast to our so called dog breath. Later in the evening, when I flipped on the TV in my hotel room, I laughed as the local news opened the show with: “Summer came in with a roar today!”
A few years ago when I returned a rental car when several agencies still were at multiple lots near SeaTac airport, the employees were complaining about the “85 degree heat.”
Same thing in Anchorage a few years back at the end of a cruise.
To both groups I said, “You haven’t REALLY sweltered until you’ve been in Houston’s “90-squared” weather (90+ degrees, 90 humidity) They thought they would die here!
i moved here from Omaha 12 years ago, my wife is from Houston and wanted to be close to her family. I still haven’t gotten used to this heat. It would get hot in omaha but never for more than a week or two before a summer cool front would come through. While the blizzards were frankly miserable, I’d still take them over a hurricane any day.
Do we see an end or a break from the “dog’s breath” anytime soon?
Lol it’s called October.
Or November really.
😂😂😂
Thanks guys. Dogs breath. I think that pretty much sums it up. Hard to believe remnants of Barry could still affect us later this week. Wasn’t here for it but I hear Allison was quite a stubborn girl.
I have a love-hate relationship with Houston’s humidity. I have dry skin and the minute I spend time in the west or up north, I start to itch. Now that I am used to the heat, I can join all those people out in the evening walking their dogs.
“UGHust returns with a vengeance!
It seems the last two summers lows in the low 80s have been common. I don’t rember it being that way in the past. What is causing this?
Ooooh joy…”thanks” Eric (and Bill Read)…just what I needed…another way to think about our heat and humidity…”Dog’s breath weather”…taking the Cheweenie outside to do her thing will have new meaning…aaarrggghh!
I lived up north by the Great Lakes for 30 years. I like to tell the complainers here that Houston weather is much to be preferred because you don’t have to shovel the humidity off of your driveway…
Speaking of dog’s breath, make sure dogs are in climate controlled environment with cool fresh water. Don’t take them out for a power walk or it might just be their last. Under NO circumstances leave them in a car, it gets deadly in as little as two minutes. These creatures give unconditional love and deserve the best from us.
It’s better here than Dallas. OMG, drier but way hotter.