Friday night’s storms were pretty dramatic in terms of thunder and lightning for some areas of Houston, including rodeo goers. I’ll admit that I didn’t think the capping inversion would break that dramatically, but it did, allowing some scattered, but severe thunderstorms to form. There were a few pockets of heavy rain, as well, with some parts of south Houston and Clear Lake picking up 2.5 inches of rain.
The good news is that the cool front associated with the upper-level low pressure system has moved to the coast, and should move offshore shortly after noon. For Houston, then, the rain is over and we should see a couple of mostly sunny days this weekend, with high temperatures in the low 80s.
I’m not ready to 100 percent rule out the chances of some stray showers Sunday night, but I think for the most part we’re going to see pleasant weather from now through about Tuesday, with continuing mostly sunny skies and highs in the low- to mid-80s. A chance of storms returns to the forecast on Wednesday, perhaps later in the day. But whereas the dynamics for severe weather and some heavy rain in Houston once appeared to be pretty favorable next Wednesday, for now I think the threat of these is diminishing a bit. We’ll be back with a full update on Monday.
Posted at 11:45am CT on Saturday by Eric
Eric – I can confirm the 2.5″ of rain, or at least 2.25″ in the rain gauge this morning. Must have been while I was asleep. I remember the wind/rain waking me up twice.
The drive home from Champions to Ellington at 4:15 PM yesterday was, ah, interesting. After checking TransStar, I decided to go around town to the east on BW-8. The stretch from just before IAH to the curve to the south was a white-knuckled “Nearer My God To Thee” experience as I was being blown around by a strong cross-wind. Double that for the 18–wheelers.
I was worried about the bridge over the Ship Channel and would it even be open. I was thinking I would have head wind by then and I was correct. The bridge was therefore open. However, I noticed as soon as I was heading south, my mileage dropped 2-3 MPG.
Cars are built too dang light these days. And I’m getting too old for this.
Several large tree limbs down in the subdivision, but no major damage. One did rip off part of someone’s front gutter.