Unfortunately, we can expect more extreme heat today with a high pressure system anchored solidly over the southern United States, and exerting its influence over Texas. Very high heat will, unfortunately, persist through the weekend and into next week. There are signs of subtle changes in our forecast, but the relentless heat we’ve seen since June is likely to relent onward for awhile.
At sunrise this morning temperatures were in the low 80s. (Weather Bell)
Tuesday
Like Monday, this will be another very warm day, with highs likely exceeding 100 degrees across much of the region. A weak disturbance is going to try and make its way through the mid-levels of the atmosphere later this afternoon, and in concert with daytime heating may produce some isolated showers. It will have its work cut out with all the sinking air, so I’d peg rain chances at only about 10 percent this afternoon and early evening. So yeah—probably not. But maybe. Winds will be light, out of the southwest.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
More of the same, which is to say hot, sunny, and humid. Look for high temperature of 100 degrees for much of the area away from the coast. You know the drill.
Saturday and Sunday
By this weekend the aforementioned high pressure system will start easing to the west a bit. This may eventually provide a slight amount of relief, but it’s going to be slow in coming. So we can probably expect highs in the vicinity of 100 degrees again this weekend, with perhaps a 10 percent chance of rain on Saturday, increasing to 20 percent on Sunday
More extreme heat is likely next week. (Pivotal Weather)
Next week
Houston’s torrid summer continues next week, with mostly sunny skies and highs in the upper 90s to 100 degrees. Rain chances may tick up a bit, but at this point I don’t think we’re looking at anything higher than 20 or 30 percent daily odds. I know this is brutal to read, and believe me, it’s difficult to write.
Unfortunately, that light is the Sun. And it’s going to be blazing hot and bright for the foreseeable future.
Sadly, if you are coming to this morning’s post looking for hope about Houston’s forecast, I can only offer a few crumbs. First of all, after this week, I think conditions may return to slightly more normal-ish weather for August. If that sounds hopeful, well, just remember that August in Houston is already pretty miserable. On the rain front we’re still looking at 5 to 10 percent daily chances this week, but by next week our daily rain chances may well jump up to about 30 percent a day, again a pattern more typical of high summer in Houston. Finally, our days are getting shorter. We have lost about 30 minutes of daylight since the summer solstice in late June, and that trend will accelerate in August. Houston is probably about six weeks away from having any expectation of the season’s first front. So some relief is coming—eventually.
Not great, Bob. (Weather Bell)
Monday and Tuesday
The story of our weather this week, however, is going to sound very similar. We’re under a potent ridge of high pressure that will consistently push high temperatures for areas inland of Interstate 10 to 100 degrees or higher this week. Monday and Tuesday look to bring the hottest weather, with afternoon temperatures and humidity combining to push heat conditions into the “extreme” level based on wet bulb globe temperatures, which factor in raw temperatures, dewpoints, wind, and other factors to provide a sense of heating. Those winds, by the way, will be light, at just 5 to 10 mph from the southwest.
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
Big-time heat continues this week, with highs of around 100 degrees, and lows around 80 degrees, and plenty of humidity. Rain chances, as mentioned in the post’s introduction, will be on the order of 5 to 10 percent.
Saturday and Sunday
Toward the end of this week the high pressure system will slowly start to retreat westward, and that will have some subtle effects on our weather this weekend. First of all, temperatures may come down a degree or two. Still very hot, but not excessively so. And perhaps we will see some more clouds, with rain chances rising to about 20 percent each day. Let’s not kid ourselves, though. For the most part these look to be very hot and sunny days.
As high pressure eases westward (over northern Mexico and southern California) next week, Houston’s forecast looks slightly better. (Weather Bell)
Next week
I’m going to ballpark highs next week in the upper 90s, with a daily 30 percent chance of rain, give or take. So again, the takeaway this morning is that this week looks extremely hot; next week a bit less so, and I would urge you to hang in there. This can’t last forever. And it won’t. Even if it seems like it will.
We continue to slip back into drought across the Houston area, and all of Texas for that matter. Since last week’s update, the report issued on Thursday showed drought expand to cover over 35 percent of the Houston region, up 5.5 percent since a week ago. Meanwhile, severe drought has arrived for eastern parts of the metro area into Liberty and Chambers Counties.
Drought now covers over a third of the Houston region, with the worst of it being east and south of the city. (US Drought Monitor)
Texas as a whole is seeing severe drought grow, up to almost 20 percent of the state now, up from about 6 percent a month ago. We’ve fortunately had some downpours pepper parts of the area this week, but it’s not even close to what we need to start reversing this process. We’re far off, and the upcoming weather pattern seems to suggest we are not getting any closer to resolution.
Today
More of the same. Look for high temperatures in the upper-90s and a few cooling showers here or there that you can thank your lucky stars, should you receive one.
Weekend
Hot! Rain chances drop from a paltry 15 percent or so on Friday to 10 to 15 percent on Saturday and 5 to 10 percent on Sunday. And even those values may be somewhat generous. Look for heat index values to tick upward into mid-100s again, possibly back to borderline heat advisory levels by Sunday afternoon. High temperatures will be in the upper-90s on Saturday and near 100 degrees Sunday and lows will be in the 70s to near 80 once again.
Next week’s heat
So if you follow the animating map below, you’ll see what’s happening next week. High pressure, or the core of the heat is established over the Southwest today. By Sunday, it will focus over Colorado, and by Tuesday, it’s centered right over Oklahoma and North Texas.
High pressure, the core of the heat, will drift into Texas next week before retreating back to the Southwest next weekend. However, because it is likely to strengthen significantly again, it may not lead to much cooling for Texas when it shifts back to our west. (Tropical Tidbits)
This means that the core of the heat will follow. We’re in for it next week, folks. No way to sugar coat this.
Some of the hottest temperatures of summer settle over us next week. (Weather Bell)
Models have generally been running too hot in terms of temperature this summer, but we’ve more than made up for it with humidity. Regardless, expect a string of heat advisories pretty much every day next week, with highs generally 99 to 102°, high humidity, and morning lows around 80 or so. It may not *feel* quite as bad as what we saw in June and earlier this month, but it won’t be off by much.
The high pressure ridging that focuses the heat may retreat back to the Southwest by next weekend, which should hopefully allow for just basic summer heat instead of the next level stuff we get next week. But I will say that some models are hinting that as the ridge pulls back to the Southwest it will strengthen further (yesterday’s 12z GFS model had the strongest modeled ridge I’ve seen on a model in my entire career). You can see that on the above animation. While extreme heat would stay to our west in that scenario, it may mean that we continue predominantly near 100 and mostly dry into the first full week of August. We shall see, but I see no reason to think any significant change will occur in Houston anytime soon.
So what of rain chances? Not great. We max out today and maybe next Saturday around 15 or so percent. That’s about the best we can muster right now, and even that may be a little generous. We know some folks, especially those that are in farming are hurting and need rain. We wish we had better news.
We haven’t written a whole lot about the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season yet on Space City Weather because there just has not been a whole lot to write about, and certainly nothing threatening to the Gulf of Mexico. However, that is likely to start changing in another two or three weeks, as we approach the heart of the season. I am particularly concerned about the extremely warm sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, which would support the rapid intensification of hurricanes.
In any case, today we are cross-posting our daily update from The Eyewall. This is the new website that Matt and I created this year to provide more in-depth coverage about storms across the Atlantic. This will not change anything we do on Space City Weather; but for those interested in the broader tropics, it provides much more information about all that is happening. So if you have friends or family members beyond Houston who are interested in tropical weather, this is a good place to point them to. Without further ado, then, here is today’s post on The Eyewall.
One-sentence summary
The odds of an eastern Atlantic tropical wave developing have increased to 40 percent today, but while it’s worth watching (especially in Bermuda), for now it seems most likely to turn away from the Caribbean and America.
Happening now: We’re still a few days away from the next Atlantic wave’s development window
If I showed you a satellite image of the Atlantic this morning, and I asked you to identify the area you would be most interested in monitoring for tropical development, I would assume that you’d pick the one near Florida.
The current view of the tropics on Thursday morning: Storms near Florida and lots of disjointed activity in the open Atlantic. (College of DuPage)
While that is certainly beefy looking, it’s being entirely driven by an upper-level low, not a surface-based system. Tropical development is unlikely to nil in that case. Though, this will hopefully do something to temper the outrageously warm water temperatures surrounding Florida right now. That said, modeling is actually latching onto the tropical wave located this morning around 30°W longitude. If we look at that on satellite, we’re probably all giving it the Larry David treatment.
The tropical wave that models have become fairly bullish on is rather disorganized at this time. Odds of development are near zero in the immediate term but increase to 40 percent over the next 3 to 7 days. (Weathernerds.org)
But! As we go through the next few days, this area is expected to consolidate some and become a little better organized. It will track generally west or west-northwest. Modeling insists it could develop. There is actually very good agreement between the GFS and European operational models and their ensembles (which are 30 to 50 different runs of the model with various initial tweaks) that this will develop, albeit not in a huge way. That aside, this is arguably the best agreement we’ve seen since Don formed. In my estimation, models have tended to be rather aggressive with development in the main development region (MDR) and Caribbean this year. So, while odds of development are on the increase and there’s good model agreement on this, we’ll see. Model odds of development over the next week are probably closer to 80 or 90 percent, but given recent struggles, the NHC estimate of 40 percent seems much more realistic to me.
Anyway, development of this system will likely be slow as it comes westward over the next 3 to 5 days.
The medium range (days 6 to 10): That tropical wave (should) swim with the fishes
One other thing that the models are in good agreement on right now is that whatever happens with this tropical wave, it is likely to turn northwest and north and eventually out to sea, missing the Caribbean and the U.S. Never say never, but that’s comforting for now. I would argue that there’s good reason to watch this if you are in Bermuda though just in case.
As the disturbance comes west, it should be able to split the gap in a weakness between two high pressure systems over the Atlantic, which should allow it to turn north and avoid most land. (Tropical Tidbits)
Beyond this wave, there’s nothing terribly exciting to focus on in the tropics through day ten.
Fantasyland (beyond day 10): All good for now
Quite frankly, it’s almost disturbingly quiet on the models right now out in the extended range. It does seem like we’re entering a briefly hostile background period in the Atlantic beginning around the first day of August. This is due to background activity associated with the Madden–Julian oscillation and convectively coupled Kelvin waves. I won’t get into the heavy details here, but you can read and learn about the MJO and hurricanes and convectively coupled Kelvin waves here. Eric Blake at the NHC is a great forecaster, and this presentation that the WMO has online is really useful. All that to say that I would suspect that things pick back up again after August 10th or so.
