In brief: In today’s post we celebrate the recent Artemis II lunar flyby, and look ahead to warmer and somewhat cloudier weather after today. Rain chances spike on Friday, but they won’t entirely go away this weekend.
Fly me to the Moon
I’m not sure I’ll ever look at the Moon the same way again. On Monday four astronauts—our friends and neighbors in Houston; Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen—flew around the far side of the Moon (see images here). There they saw some incredible lunar geography (selenography in space talk), Earth setting behind the Moon, and a stunning eclipse of the Sun. I’m hoping this mission is breaking through to the broader public because this is an incredible crew, and it is delightful to see NASA daring to fly into deep space again. If we do this right, this is just the beginning of a long, sustained program to explore and settle on the lunar surface.
Wednesday
Back here on Earth, we are not going to see any eclipses, but we will see plenty of sunshine throughout the day. We are starting to see a more pronounced onshore flow, but dewpoints should hold in the 50s (read: drier air) through the afternoon before humidity shoots up later today. I expect high temperatures in the vicinity of 80 degrees, with overnight lows in the mid-60s.
Thursday
After today we’re going to see less sunshine for the next few days, but I don’t expect it to go away entirely. Highs on Thursday will again be in the range of 80 degrees, with a fair bit of humidity. Winds will blow from the east-southeast at about 10 mph with higher gusts. A few light showers will be possible during the daytime, but I don’t expect any real accumulations. Lows Thursday night will only drop to around 70 degrees. And that’s pretty much going to be our low temperatures for the next week, so get used to them.
Friday
This day will bring our best chance of rain for the week as an upper-level disturbance moves into the area and combines with a fairly moist atmosphere. The best chance of rain is likely to be southwest of Houston, so places like Fort Bend and southern Brazoria counties. However, I expect most of the area to see a healthy chance of rain, with much of us probably picking up between 0.25 to 0.75 inch of rain through Friday night. Highs will be near 80 degrees with another muggy night.
Saturday or Sunday
I’m afraid we’re still playing the will-it or won’t-it rain game for this weekend game. A lot of our modeling indicates that the chances for showers will drop off considerably by Saturday morning, but I’m not convinced there will be enough high pressure in play to entirely shut off the spigot. I’m going to go with a 40 percent chance of showers on Saturday, and 30 percent on Sunday, and not feel great about the forecast. Regardless, I don’t anticipate heavy rainfall this weekend. Expect highs around 80 degrees with continued warm nights and partly sunny skies.
Next week
Most of next week looks to remain on the warm side, with highs in the low 80s, warm nights, and plenty of humidity. Rain chances are never going to go away, but they may be a little higher during the middle of the week as the atmosphere becomes a little more perturbed. We shall see.
