Good morning. It’s in the 40s across Houston this morning, and we’re now going to remain in a cooler pattern through the weekend, with a light freeze possible on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Today
Northerly winds will keep conditions across the area winter-like today, with highs likely rising only into the mid-50s under partly sunny skies. Look for another cool night tonight in the mid-40s.
Thursday and Friday
Winds should veer back out of the south on Thursday during the daytime hours, and with some moisture in the air we can’t rule out a few scattered showers along with highs in the low 60s. Accumulations will be slight, however. A cool front will move into Houston later on Thursday to reinforce the colder air mass already in place.
The big question is rainfall later on Thursday night, Friday, and Friday night. An atmospheric disturbance will move into the area Friday morning, but there’s not going to be an overly amount of moisture to work with. At a minimum Friday looks to be cloudy and cold with highs in the mid-40s, and with northerly winds it will feel colder. Any light rain on top of this will make for a pretty grim winter day. If this precipitation persists into Friday night across northern Houston and counties such as Montgomery and Walker, some sleet is possible. We’ll continue to track that possibility.
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Temperatures on Friday night and into Saturday morning will fall to near freezing in most of Houston, and I expect a light freeze for outlying, northern areas.
Saturday and Sunday
A cold winter weekend. Skies should begin to clear out by Saturday morning or so, but with a 10 mph northerly wind temperatures aren’t going up much. If you’re tailgating on Saturday for the Texans game look for a temperature of about 40 degrees at noon (wind chills in the mid-30s), and the low 40s as you’re walking into NRG Stadium for the kickoff. The roof will undoubtedly be closed.
With clear skies much of the Houston area will probably see a light freeze on Sunday morning, except for areas along the coast. Sunday, too, probably won’t warm out of the mid- to upper-40s.
Next week
After the cold weekend, temperatures will warm up next week, and although it’s January I can still see highs making it into at least the low- or mid-70s by Tuesday or Wednesday. I’ve been tracking conditions for Houston’s marathon on Sunday, Jan. 15th, and I’ll have a new update this afternoon. There’s still a fair amount of uncertainty, but the safest bet right now is for warm conditions.
Posted at 6:25am CT on Wednesday by Eric