We hope everyone enjoyed the Christmas holiday. For kids, the two week winter break has just begun, while for many others its back to work today. Weather wise, we are looking at a cold, and often damp forecast to end 2017 in Houston.
Tuesday
This morning has started out cold and gray, and conditions won’t change much throughout the day. The radar shows drizzle and light rain showers spreading out over the region, and this will remain the story for much of today and tonight. We won’t see much in the way of accumulations—with a tenth or two of an inch of rain on the west side of Houston, and perhaps as much as half an inch through Wednesday morning. Temperatures will remain cold, with gray skies limiting highs to around 50 degrees. Lows tonight will drop into the 40s.
Wednesday
A cold front will push through the Houston region later on Tuesday or during the overnight hours, and this should bring some marginally drier air. Eventually, this drier air should allow for rain chances to end Wednesday. Even where it does rain Wednesday, accumulations should be slight. The main story will continue to be temperatures, with highs Wednesday likely remaining in the 40s—chilly.
(Space City Weather is brought to you this month by the Law Office of Murray Newman)
Thursday and Friday
We should see a couple of days with no rainfall, but that doesn’t mean conditions will warm. While cloudy nights should keep overnight lows above freezing—most of the area will continue to see nights in the 40s—daytime highs will remain in the 50s. Friday looks to be the pick of the litter in terms of weather this week, with partly sunny skies allowing temperatures to rise into the mid-50s. Break out the bathing suits.
New Year’s Weekend
Confidence in the forecast for this weekend is not particularly high. We can pretty safely bet on cloudy weather. But by Sunday (New Year’s Eve) there’s a pretty broad split in the models in terms of temperature, and at this point the potential high that day is anywhere from the mid-40s to about 70 degrees, and consequently we don’t have too much confidence in the weather on New Year’s Eve night, when people are going to be out and about. For now my best guess is that we’ll see cold weather, with temperatures in the low 40s, and a chance of light rain. We’ll hope for better.
At this point the first few days of 2018 look quite cold, but the forecast for next week is even less certain than that for this weekend.
Let’s count our blessings.
We could be in Minneapolis .
Or Fairbanks, where currently it’s a “blistering” minus 2 F, dropping to 12 below by 8 PM Alaska Time today. (11 PM Houston). But it’s a “dry cold!” i.e. hypothermia doesn’t set in as quickly if you avoid falling into the Chena River that runs thru the town
“Break out the bathing suits.” Love the injections of humor along with the stellar weather reports.
Yes. It was -20 at my parents’ place in Northern Wisconsin this morning!
Pond hockey weather!
My brother in Mass. says they expect bitter cold with rounds of snow over the coming week/ten days. Not much accumulation, but towns have to work hard to prevent ice. Driving is bad, have to scrape or brush off the car daily, then hope it starts. Yeesh!
Freezes kill insects. A good thing. We have a flea population because our weather is too hot. Cycle of life. I don’t want to live in the Philippines.
For the Yeti!
What are the rainfall chances for Saturday afternoon (12/30)? We are having at outdoor wedding at Bal Harbour marina. Really hoping for dry skies!