Early look at a Thanksgiving forecast; also guess who was just named Houstonian of the year?

In brief: In the wake of Monday’s front, Houston’s weather will now be sunny and cooler for the rest of the week, before a warmup this weekend. Today’s post assesses just how cool our nights will get. Then, we’ll look ahead to an uncertain forecast for Thanksgiving, nine days from now. Finally, we talk about a nice accolade for the site.

A few notes

Thank you to everyone who voted for Matt and I, as we were formally named “Houstonian of the year” on Monday by Houstonia magazine. We have been doing the no-hype thing for more than nine years now, and it is wonderful to be recognized by the community for our efforts to produce reliable information.

If you’re interested in space, I’ll be giving a talk at North Shepherd Brewing today at 6:30 pm CT, as part of the “Pint-Sized Science” series to broaden science in a fun and public way. There’s no charge. More information can be found here.

Finally, we’re right in the middle of our annual fundraiser for Space City Weather. Thank you, sincerely, to everyone who has contributed so far. We use these funds to keep the website and app going all year long—rain or shine, flood or drought. You can find out how to donate, or purchase merchandise, right here.

Tuesday

Most of the region saw at least a smattering of rain, and some parts of Houston picked up 1 inch or more as a cool front pushed into the region on Monday. That should be the end of the rain for at least a week, and we’re unlikely to even see so much as a few clouds until Friday or Saturday. Rather, it’s going to be sunshine and drier air for awhile. High temperatures today are going to push into the upper 70s to about 80 degrees, but with lower dewpoints the air will not feel humid. Lows tonight should drop into the mid-50s. The thing to watch for after midnight will be increasing winds from the northwest, gusting up to 20 to 25 mph. This will represent a surge of colder and drier air that will really bring us into November-like weather.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

These will be mostly sunny days, with high temperatures of about 70 degrees, and rather dry air. Winds will generally be light. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights will all be chilly, likely getting into the upper 40s for much of Houston. Wednesday night should be the coolest night, however, with far inland parts of our region dropping into the upper 30s. Sweater weather, finally?

Saturday and Sunday

Skies will remain partly to mostly sunny this weekend, but we’ll start to see some clouds as a southerly flow returns. Highs on Saturday should reach the mid-70s, with overnight lows around 60 degrees. Sunday will be a bit more humid, with highs of around 80 degrees. If you have outdoor plans for this weekend, you should have zero concerns.

Next week, plus an early look at Thanksgiving

Monday and Tuesday of next week will, almost certainly, be rather warm and muggy. I suspect most of the region will be in the mid-80s. (Record highs for next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are 86, 86, and 84 degrees, respectively. We will be close to that). Nights will be warm, in the upper 60s. So very un-holiday-like.

However, there’s a pretty strong signal for a front to arrive in the middle of next week. The major operational models bring the front through by Wednesday, but when we dig deeper into the ensembles there’s definitely some risk that the front is delayed to Thursday, which is of course Thanksgiving. There’s likely to be some rain with the front, although right now there’s no evidence of a major line of storms or anything.

So where does that leave us? We’re going to have to give you a probabilistic forecast at this point. By this, I mean the most likely outcome is that the front makes it through on Wednesday, and Thanksgiving ends up with high temperatures in the 60s, and perhaps partly to mostly cloudy skies but no rain. However, there’s a decent chance (one-in-three, maybe?) that the front is slower and doesn’t arrive until Thanksgiving Day. In such a scenario the holiday may be fairly warm and muggy, with a health chance of showers. That sure would be a turkey of a forecast.