In brief: Houston’s heat and humidity continue, pretty much without change, for the time being. In the spirit of optimism, in today’s post I identify a couple of silver linings to the ongoing August weather.
Small victories
Houston continues lie under the influence of high pressure, and while there will be some subtle changes in the days ahead the big picture of heat and humidity remains more or less the same. This is fairly typical for August, and there are a few upsides. One is that, with the lack of rain of late, the incredible surge of mosquitoes we saw in July has abated some. And secondly, for as long as there is high pressure in place, it should steer any tropical activity away from us. Even so, these are small victories when the weather is this sultry.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
The current heat wave will peak over the next three days, with high temperatures likely to reach 100 degrees for much of the metro area. We won’t get much, if any relief from winds, which will range from calm to maybe 5 mph. Skies will be sunny, with high humidity. Low temperatures will briefly get down to about 80 degrees overnight. Please take care if you’re going to be outside during the middle of the day.
Sunday
The second half of the weekend isn’t going to be much different. It will still be hot, sunny, and humid. Rain chances will still be near zero percent. However, temperatures for most of Houston probably will not reach 100 degrees. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.
Next week
There won’t be a whole lot of change next week. Skies should still be sunny, for the most part. Highs likely will range from the mid- to upper-90s. I don’t want to say rain chances are zero, because they’re not. But they’re quite low, in the 10 to 20 percent range for most days. Perhaps they’ll be a little bit higher by Friday or Saturday, but one has to squint really hard into the available data to see that.
Tropics
Tropical Storm Debby has moved back inland into the southeastern United States, where it will continue to produce heavy rainfall and flooding in the Carolinas, before bringing the same to Virginia and the northeastern United States in the coming days.
Beyond Debby there is a new wave that forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are tracking. Most of our model guidance indicates this wave will turn northward before threatening the Gulf of Mexico, but given the time of year we’ll keep an eye on things just in case.
Some other upsides to August in Houston are
1. Okra – the last time Earth was too hot for okra was during the Hadean Eon. The patch I have in my backyard is thriving, with no additional watering. August heat, my okra laughs at you.
Orchids – I’m not an orchid expert but the nearly dead one I rescued from my office is thriving on my shady front porch. It loves it hot and humid. Beginner’s luck? Maybe.
Thank you for all you do.
May I just say, excellent use of the Caddyshack quote.
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I may be the only person that doesn’t like Caddyshack. However, that was a good use of movie lines from the 80s – one point. 😃🤘🏻
I’ll happily take high pressure and heat if it keeps hurricanes away!
Oy, that last sentence scared the heck out of me momentarily.. “this wave will turn northward before threatening the Gulf of Mexico” 😮 At first I read it to say it would turn north then threaten the Gulf of Mexico, but context clues from the rest of the sentence put me at ease. But for a moment..
Yuck it’s touching red!!!
It’s the perfect time to recover from ankle surgery, since I now have an excuse not to leave the air-conditioned house. Silver linings!!!
Today 1 month since the Hurricane!!!
Is it just me but isn’t hurricane Debby somewhat like hurricane Harvey? It seems like they both did that weird kind of going on land and then doing a loop out to the water and staying there for a little bit and then going back to land.