Houston’s rain almost done for a couple days

Will Southeast Texas finally catch a few rain-free days? It looks that way, but we still have today to get through: One more round of rain and storms, but then we’ll see a couple days off.

TODAY & FLOOD UPDATE

The radar this morning looks somewhat similar to the way it did 24 hours ago at this time: A cluster of thunderstorms was dropping south toward Austin and College Station and in our general direction.

As the morning goes on, these will move toward us. I suspect based on models and extrapolating this radar that they’ll arrive around mid to late morning again, perhaps a hair faster than yesterday.

The good news is that similar to yesterday, the rain should continue moving, so it won’t rain for too long over the area. That said, any rain at all will cause minor street flooding in spots and exacerbate some ongoing flooding north and west of Houston. But the bayous, etc. can handle this.

Any lingering showers will end this afternoon, and that should be it for organized rain for a couple days.

Here’s an update on some of the more problematic bodies of water around the area.

The map above will likely be updated this morning at some point by the National Weather Service, but it gives you a good sense of where things stand. We’ve seen most rivers/creeks crest in Harris County. The water will rise on larger rivers now as they drain this week’s rain to the Gulf.

As Eric noted last night, Barker and Addicks Reservoirs are at record levels and Flood Warnings have been posted for them for the first time on record. The Army Corps of Engineers has emphasized that the dams are doing their jobs and are in good shape. Despite the record levels (Addicks is up to 102.1′ this morning and Barker is still around 94.3′), there is still a lot of breathing room for the dams to hold back water. These reservoirs are large and built for this sort of thing. That said, street flooding is expected to be a significant problem in that area for some time. Highway 6 may be out of service there for several weeks. We’ll also need to monitor future rains, as that could prolong matters.

For the latest on the river levels on the map above, you can visit the National Weather Service’s rivers page.

FRIDAY

It looks like we go back to our more typical late spring weather as we head toward the weekend. I expect a mix of sun and clouds, along with just a slight chance of a hit or miss shower or storm. It’s doubtful we see anything organized, and whatever does develop Friday may have a short lifespan. Temperatures will top off in the low to mid 80s.

WEEKEND

Saturday is the pick of the weekend. We’ll have partly to mostly sunny conditions, with high temperatures in the low to mid 80s again. Sunday will see partly to mostly cloudy conditions, with numerous showers and thunderstorms developing in the afternoon. To be clear, this isn’t a repeat of this week. Available atmospheric moisture is only forecast to be slightly above normal this weekend (compared to Monday when it was at record levels).

So expect showers and storms in a lot of places, especially west of I-45 and south of I-10. It’s unlikely we’ll see any major issues crop up, but any rain in our current condition will take longer to drain.

More clouds will hold temperatures down a bit, with highs only expected to be in the upper 70s.

NEXT WEEK IN TWO SENTENCES

The first half of the week should be mainly quiet, but there will be an increasing chance of thunderstorms by late week. It will be hot early in the week, with solid mid 80s possible.

Posted at 6:50 AM Thursday