Good morning, everyone. It will be a fairly quick post this morning, as Matt is traveling, and I’m in Florida for the Falcon Heavy launch, which may liftoff as early as 12:30pm CT today. (If you’re interested check out these photos of me and Elon Musk near the launch pad on Monday).
Tuesday through Wednesday morning
A warm front has essentially stalled along the coast, and this is creating foggy conditions across much of the area, which may linger into the mid-morning hours. “Clearing” skies is a relative term, as skies will remain cloudy throughout the day. As that warm front lifts back north, it will generate some showers and probably some thunderstorms later this afternoon across the area, with the greatest potential for severe weather to the north-northeast of Houston. I expect most areas will see about one-half inch of rain today, give or take, as temperatures top out at about 70 degrees.
Wednesday
A cold front will push through the region early on Wednesday, likely moving through the city by or before sunrise. This will not immediately scour the rain chances from Houston, however, and I expect most of the region to pick up another half inch of rain, or so, before the region finally begins to dry out later on Wednesday, or Wednesday night. Temperatures will be quite a bit colder behind the front, so look for readings only in the low 50s on Wednesday after the front moves through.
Thursday
Mostly cloudy, and cold, with highs in the 50s. Positively winter-like! Clouds should keep overnight lows at around 40 degrees for most of the area.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
The weekend forecast, as Matt alluded to on Monday, looks less than stellar. The details still aren’t clear, but we expect the onshore flow to return Friday, and then to see a decent chance of showers on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Highs should be in the 60s both days before a front arrives some time on Sunday, although it’s not clear whether this front will move through during the middle of the day, or late evening hours. It is also not clear just how cold it will get after the front’s passage.
The bottom line is that you should prepare for the potential of rain showers this weekend, with the likely accumulation of about 1 inch, give or take, of additional rainfall ahead of, and along with the front.
“check out these photos of me and Elon Musk near the launch pad on Monday”
🙂 So have you bought your “airline ticket” yet? Either on one of Musk’s craft or the ones from West Texas? 🙂
Nice article in Technica Eric. It goes without saying that I’m a bit jealous for you to be able to watch the launch in person. Enjoy!
I certainly am looking forward to it.
Enjoy the launch. I’m hoping to cheer SpaceX to success today.
Make friends with Musk and you’ll get a site sponsor for the rest of your life
Meeting Musk at the pad was truly sublime, but Reliant has been and remains a great sponsor!
But we the taxpayers will be paying. The only reason Tesla can stay in business is tax subsidies. Tesla has yet to make a profit but trades at over $300 per share.
For us Houston cajuns, is Mardi Gras looking like a wash?
Eric, I CANNOT even imagine how amazing this launch was to see up close….as well as interviewing Elon himself right beforehand. And those perfect double landings!! What a show. The Tesla zipping happily along was just icing on the cake! As a kid I was lucky enough to have been invited by an astronaut (Ken Cockrell) from our church to see him take a night launch over in Florida…but seeing this launch seemed just as exciting! Cannot WAIT to read about your follow-up interview later today. More details!!!!
C’mon guys…. need a dry weekend to work on the garden beds… too muddy now.
Musk’s gotta work on that second stage thing too. Hard to have a soft landing at 300 MPH.
Really big air bags, like the Russians do in Kazakhstan. “Slightly” bigger than the ones in the Tesla autos.
So cool to see those photos. I hope you took a moment to just sit and enjoy where your career has gone. A cool perk of your hard work and dedication to writing about science.