Houston faces a soaker of a weekend

Well Houston, you were promised two days of beautiful, spring-like weather. Now that you’ve had them we’re heading back to a more moist, warm period through this weekend and most of next week. Let’s put it this way—we’re unlikely to see the 50s in Houston again until at least the weekend of April 11th. The bigger news, for now, is the likelihood of a wet weekend.

Thursday

Temperatures are starting out in the 60s this morning, and should warm into the mid- to upper-70s. Highs will depend in part on cloud cover, and if you see a few slivers of sunshine this afternoon it will make things a little bit warmer. Scattered light to moderate rain showers will be possible this afternoon and evening, especially north of Interstate 10, but we don’t expect anything too impactful. Winds will be mostly light, out of the southeast at 10 mph or less. Low temperatures tonight will probably fall down only to around 70 for most.

Friday

This will be another day like Thursday, albeit with a little bit better rain chances, and temperatures perhaps rising a little closer to 80 degrees during the day time. Friday night will be warm again, with a modest chance of thunderstorms, again with the best chances north and west of downtown Houston. The strongest thunderstorms should remain to the west of Harris County, near a slow-moving cold front as shown in NOAA’s severe weather outlook above.

Saturday

The risk for heavy rainfall increases over the Houston metro area late Friday night and on Saturday in Houston as the front approaches the region and stalls. This is a tricky forecast because there remains some uncertainty in the location of the front this weekend, but we’re definitely facing a scenario where 2 to 3 inches of rainfall are possible for Houston. One concern I have with the forecast is that if the front stalls further to the west, areas east of Interstate 69 in Houston are unlikely to see nearly that much precipitation. But for now the best bet is that the region gets a really good soaking on Saturday. It probably won’t rise to the level of causing localized flooding, but that’s something we’ll watch for. Highs Saturday will be in the mid-70s.

Sunday

Another gray and warm day. We are likely to see some additional showers, but with the front probably lifting away from the region they should not be as widespread or organized as on Saturday.

Next week

Most of next week also looks warm and gray, albeit with lower rain chances. Expect daytime highs likely to be somewhere in the 80s with correspondingly warm nights. Some kind of front may try to push into Houston around Friday or so, but we’re making no promises on that one.