In brief: Today’s post assesses the emerging drought across the Houston region, and takes a peek at the winter outlook to see whether we are likely to see relief in the coming weeks and months. We also discuss the fine weather in store for this weekend, and the rather hot conditions expected next week.
Houston enters drought
For the first time since last December, the majority of the Houston area has returned to drought conditions as measured by the US Drought Monitor. For now, most of the region has been classified as a “moderate” drought, but even with shortening days and cooler temperatures, the trend lines are not good.
It’s been a weird year. Houston has fallen into a drought even though the region remains about 10 inches above normal rainfall totals for this year. That’s because we had an exceptionally wet spring and first half of summer, punctuated by Hurricane Beryl in July. But since the beginning of August, and especially since early September, Houston has been almost bone dry. This has coincided with almost uniformly sunny days and warm-to-hot temperatures. As a result, we’ve gone from very wet soils to increasingly dry ones.
So what happens next? The next week looks to remain dry, with only very low rain chances. Maybe the pattern changes after that, but at this point there is no strong signal in the models, and persistence is the most likely outcome. Maybe we’ll see a decent shot of rain around the end of the month, but again this is really at the limit of what our best modeling can predict.
Looking deeper into fall and winter, we see a slowly developing La Niña in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Historically, this favors a drier winter across Texas. The only good thing I can say about a drought during the winter months is that it does not take all that much rain to break it—with shorter days and a lower Sun angle, a little rain goes a long ways. Unfortunately, I don’t even see a little rain in the foreseeable forecast at this time. We’ll continue to look for signs that is changing.
Friday
For my tastes at least, Thursday was one of the very nicest days of the year weather-wise. We’re now going to start warming up, but with dewpoints generally in the upper 50s the air will continue to feel comfortable. At least by Houston standards. High temperatures today will be about 80 degrees, with mostly sunny skies, and easterly winds at perhaps 10 mph with higher gusts. Lows tonight will drop into the low 60s for most locations away from the coast.
Saturday and Sunday
The weekend will see high temperatures in the lower 80s, for the most part, with sunny skies. Low temperatures should continue to drop into the lower 60s, which generally means comfortable if not cool weather. Really, we have no concerns for you if you’re planning any outdoor activities. Just be mindful of the increasing number of burn bans across the region, due to the emerging drought discussed above.
Next week
Pretty much all of next week looks warm, with highs starting out in the mid-80s and ending up in the upper 80s. Some locations probably will hit 90 degrees toward the end of next week. We’ll see a few more clouds in the sky, and rising humidity levels. Unfortunately, the last full week of October is unlikely to feel fall-like at all. The heat may extend into next weekend.
Yay!!
I know we need rain, but Election Workers are going to be extremely happy about having none of that to deal with, too.
(Hope you’re feeling better, Matt)
What an odd comment! I can’t imagine election workers being at all concerned whether it is raining or not.
It’s like we are in the California deserts or something, clear or a marginal amount of cirrus clouds every day for the past 2 week, albeit without the Houmidity.
Ok, I am utterly confused. We have above average rainfall for the year, our Houston area reservoirs are almost full at 93.5% (which is tons of water), yet we have a drought?? Who defines this stuff?
Drought is, largely, defined by soil moisture content. Our weather in the latter half of summer and on into the present has made for very efficient drying of soils. A front-loaded year rain-wise and full reservoirs do nothing for dry soils.
A fait amount of that rain came with Beryl. A one off heavy storm like that ends up mostly in runoff and the soils don’t get much benefit.
Instead of questioning it as though you’re right, maybe you should actually understand what a drought is and how its determined rather than what YOU think it is
Can you include wind information in the forecast. Speed and direction, lots of activities around the water.
Your better bet for specific locales would be to go to weather dot gov / forecastpoints / and put in the zip code or place of interest. This will give a higher resolution breakdown that may be more suitable for your request.
It’s interesting how the trend is after we get a hurricane (or close to it..) through here, it gets REALLY dry for quite a while. Definitely happened with Ike in ’08, and I believe with Harvey in ’17, and now this year.
That’s mainy because La Nina and ESNO Neutral typically increases our chance for hurricanes because of the lack of windshear in the Gulf. This leads to our summers being more rainy. On the same token, La Nina can cause us to dry out in the fall which can lead to bad droughts in the spring.
2008 and 2017 were La Nina years.
always enjoy your pattern insight comments regarding ESNO b/c I know how much they impact us. When some were complaining about the rain in spring and summer, I was definitely not cause i knew this was coming.. I mean it was forecasted earlier this year and was originally supposed to start in July if I recall, and technically we’re in neutral right now but its borderline La Nina. I’ve been in Houston 25 years and have come to Love El Nino and Despise La Nina because it always results in a dry warm spell. Good news is it’s expected to return to neutral in the spring. Bottom line, expect a mild dry winter and 2025 will probably be warm and dry, but not on the extreme levels of 2011/2023.
Thank you I appreciate it and I also much prefer El Nino patterns. Fortunately this La Nina isn’t going to be near as strong as the 2010 La Nina, so hopefully we shouldn’t end up in a 2011 scenario next year but you never know with the weather.
Silly me buying UH football tickets for 10/26 thinking we would have chilly weather for a fall game…
I noticed this week that the cracks are starting to reappear in my pastures again. Last summer they got to be HUGE before we got some rain. I sure hope it doesn’t get that bad again.
Goodbye Fall it was nice knowing you. We shall meet again in mid Novemeber maybe.
Last year we had a strong winter like cold front blow through on October 30th. Temperatures dropped into the 40s all afternoon with blustery north winds all day. The highs on Halloween afternoon were in the mid 50s and it dropped into the 30s Halloween night. I somehow don’t think that is going to happen this year.
It was glorious and I think you’re right 🙁
Trying to reassure my mom that disease from mice are not a problem east of Rockies, I looked up risk of storms… Per CDC. Over lifetime 1 in 27925 chance of dying in storm. Fire is 1 in 1236. Dog attack is 1 in 43000. Falls are 1 in 92, which maybe includes down stairs!!! Drowning in 1 in 1032. So falls maybe from stairs is 100x more deadly than a storm or drowning.. I wonder if more people die on stairs when evacuating than would die if stay.. My mom can’t accept life is pretty safe, disease is 90% of deaths, accidents are under 10%. But we all watch news and feel immense fear, maybe wrongly. In the end I convinced her mice in MN aren’t infected with Hanta and are like ants, they get in house but can’t kill you. Like hi wind?
Remind your mother that being born gives you a 100% certainty of dying.
Actually, I think mice are cute.
vile climate
The climate is what it is and it is not its fault for being vile – it is of our own making.
I just read NOAA’s annual winter forecast and it’s not looking good for us – rain or cool weather wise. I don’t mean to sound like that one guy who always talks about moving away from here, but I do hate the weather here sometimes. 4 mild seasons would be wonderful.
Maybe we should start praying for rain over Texas & the Southwest. My thoughts are that this is not normal. This could be geo engineering as was the case with the hurricanes on the East Coast. They have already hit us with one hurricane, so they decided not to do that twice. Hence the drought. God is bigger than those who are geo -engineering the weather. Prayers for Wyoming as well.
The abnormal dryness we are experiencing at the moment is nothing new and has happened multiple times in the past, primarily in the 1950s. We are far from reaching what our natural climate can do to us over the decades. Neither Hurricane Helene nor Milton was as powerful as the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. So, there is no reason to believe that the harsh weather on Earth isn’t anything other than a natural display of power and strength.