Good morning. As usual, weather prediction remains a challenging enterprise. Thursday’s forecast outlined two risks for the Houston metro area: heavy rainfall and severe storms. The former definitely delivered, but the severe thunderstorms underperformed due to a lack of instability. However, even the heavy rainfall was a mixed bag. If you’re reading this from Montgomery or Cypress, you’re probably asking, what heavy rain?!? But if you live in Galveston or League City or La Porte, you know what’s up. Many locations in these cities received 4 or more inches of rainfall on a very soggy day. My backyard is a swamp this morning and the dogs are loving it. So it goes on the Gulf Coast.

Before jumping into the forecast, I would be remiss in not mentioning our annual fundraiser one final time. It ends today—yes, we’ll stop nagging you—and I want to thank you with a full heart for your generous support. Rest assured the site will be in good stead, financially, heading into 2024 and whatever that years holds weather-wise. If you have not contributed yet and would like to, please visit our store to buy merchandise or make a donation.

Friday

It’s a muggy, foggy mess out there for most of the region with dewpoints and temperatures sitting at about 70 degrees. The fog may hang around until around 9 a.m. or so before temperatures rise enough for it to begin to dissipate. Highs today, however, will only reach the low 70s with persistent clouds.

We have a couple of things to watch for today. First up is a weak front that is going to slowly sag into the region, bringing slightly drier air. This front, in turn, will increase chances for showers and thunderstorms as atmospheric moisture levels remain elevated. These chances, unfortunately, will be highest in coastal counties that received the heaviest rainfall on Thursday. Another 0.5 to 1.5 inch of rain is possible for some locations south of Interstate 10 this afternoon and early evening. Some light rain chances will linger overnight as lows drop to about 60 degrees in Houston.

Saturday

This will be another day of mixed bag weather. The front is going to hang around the coast, so while inland areas will see some moderately drier air, areas south of Interstate 10 should remain somewhat humid. Highs will probably reach the low 70s, and I can’t entirely rule out some light showers along the coast. Those chances will finally end Saturday evening as a reinforcing front arrives with drier air. Lows on Saturday night should drop into the 50s.

Sunday

Skies should be partly sunny for the latter half of the weekend, which seems only fitting since the day’s name is Sunday. Humidity levels will drop noticeably with the second front. We’ll see highs in the upper 60s and light northwesterly winds. Lows on Sunday night will drop to around 50 degrees in Houston, with cooler conditions for outlying areas.

Next week

Our weather for next week looks rather fine. We’re going to see plenty of sunshine for most of the week, with highs generally in the 60s and lows in the 40s and 50s. A series of fronts may actually bring the coldest air to Houston by midweek. Rain chances look low to non-existent for much of the week. They may start to rise by next weekend, along with humidity. Daytime highs may reach the mid-70s, or so, by Saturday. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Hi everyone. Just jumping in with a quick afternoon update on the forecast for severe weather in the Houston area. The bottom line is that the window for severe thunderstorms away from the immediate coast is closing quickly this afternoon.

What has happened is that rainfall near the coast and inland this morning has sapped the atmosphere of some of the instability needed to drive severe weather. (Such instability is necessary to promote the kinds of rising air that fuel strong thunderstorms). As a result the atmospheric environment is not really capable of supporting the kinds of supercells that produce tornadoes and other severe activity. We could still see a few isolated tornadoes this afternoon, but the threat is fading.

In terms of precipitation, we’ve seen the heaviest rainfall so far along the coast today, near a warm front at the surface. A couple of inches have fallen and we’re likely to see additional accumulations over the next few hours with sporadic pulses of heavier rainfall. It is these coastal regions from Matagorda Bay to Galveston Bay and up toward Port Arthur that the greatest potential for strong thunderstorms lies. As this system continues to propagate to the east, the threat of heavy rainfall and storm activity, even along the coast, will diminish late this afternoon and evening.

Good morning. As we’ve been discussing this week, there is the likelihood of storms today, with the threat of severe weather during the daytime hours. There are two potential threats that I want to highlight before jumping in to the daily forecast.

Heavy Rainfall

We are already seeing light rainfall this morning across the southern portion of the region, and these showers are likely to intensify during the mid-morning hours. Much of the area is likely to pick up 1 to 3 inches of rainfall, but there is a risk of higher totals beneath the stronger storms. It is likely that areas along, and to the south and east of Highway 59/Interstate 69, will be most at risk for these totals.

To account for potential flooding we are instituting a Stage 1 flood alert, which means there will be a risk of nuisance street flooding later this morning and into the afternoon hours. The worst of the rains should shift eastward during the mid- the late-afternoon hours, and take the threat of flooding with it. Note that the Houston area’s primary radar is down for maintenance. Matt discussed some workarounds in yesterday’s update.

Severe storms

The other threat today will come from an unstable air mass that could produce strong storms. The risk of severe thunderstorms will come a little bit later, beginning during the late morning hours and persisting into late afternoon. It’s a tricky forecast because some of the morning rainfall could sap the atmosphere of energy to produce severe weather. In any case there is decent chance for damaging winds, a few tornadoes, and possibly even some hail to develop in the Houston metro area today shortly before noon, and persisting throughout the afternoon.

Thursday

As outlined above, today will be something of a mess weatherwise. For parts of Houston I think effects will be minimal, but please do be weather aware today due to the potential for severe weather. In terms of temperatures, expect highs of around 70 degrees, with rising humidity. Winds, generally from the south, could gust up to 30 or 35 mph. The potential for rainfall and storms should really drop off by around sunset, and tonight should be fairly quiet with lows in the mid-60s.

Friday

A front will move into Houston from the northwest on Friday morning before stalling near or just offshore. Skies will be mostly cloudy, with highs in the low 70s. Some lingering showers and thunderstorms may redevelop near the coast during the daytime, due to the proximity of the front. Lows on Friday night will drop into the upper 50s for inland areas, while remaining a bit warmer closer to the coast.

Saturday

This will be another partly to mostly cloudy day, with highs of around 70 degrees. Some slight rain chances will linger near the coast. Sometime later on Saturday a reinforcing, drier air mass should move into Houston, ending any rain chances and bringing some cooler air. This will drop lows on Saturday night into the 50s for all but the the immediate coast.

Sunday

This should be a partly sunny day, with drier air, and highs in the mid-60s. Lows on Sunday night will drop into the 40s for inland areas, while staying in the 50s close to the coast.

Next week

Most of next week will bring partly to mostly sunny days, with highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s and 50s. Rain chances look minimal. This will be fairly typical weather for December. We likely will see a bit of a warming trend toward the weekend, with highs perhaps in the low 70s. We’ll see.

Fundraiser

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A couple quick housekeeping notes today before we get into things. First, our annual fundraiser will end soon! We are grateful for your support so far, and if you want to purchase merchandise to be shipped in time for Christmas or just simply make a donation, you still can here. Thank you!

Houston’s KHGX radar maintenance

With rain in the forecast and at least the potential for some strong to severe storms tomorrow, Houston’s primary Doppler radar is offline for maintenance. You may say, “Why on earth would they do that?” Unfortunately, there’s no real time of year here that’s better or worse; it can storm all 12 months of the year. The maintenance necessary to replace the radar pedestal (extending the lifespan of the radar another 20+ years) is extensive and requires a lot of planning. So it’s not something they can just pause or shift. The good news is that Houston has two terminal Doppler radars (TDWRs) that cover most of the metro area, and adjacent radars to ours will provide imperfect but mostly adequate coverage through the outage.

For those of you that use our app for radar coverage, there is a workaround. If you tap the radar in the app, you’ll notice two diamonds, one on the south side of Houston and one on the north side. Those are the aforementioned TDWR’s from Tomball and Pearland, and you should be able to pull data from those, covering essentially the entire metro area. If you live outside the city and suburbs, you can move the map around to a few other options. To the west, the radar north of Austin can cover most of the northwest fringe areas outside the Houston metro to about College Station and Brenham or so. Corpus Christi’s radar is useful for Matagorda Bay up through maybe Wharton. Lake Charles’s radar will cover the east side adequately to just east of Baytown. Coverage between about Huntsville and Lufkin will be a little trickier, but Shreveport and the Tomball TDWR will help there. Inconvenient for sure, but not a calamity, and this is great news for the long term health of our area’s extremely valuable Doppler radar.

Today

Wednesday will be a fairly calm day across the area. No trouble yet. We’ll see clouds roll in and thicken up from south to north through the day. They’re already starting to do so in fact. But some of the lower clouds could scour out by late morning before more clouds increase again later. Temperatures should peak in the mid to maybe upper-60s later today.

Tonight

Look for winds to kick up tonight, especially at the coast, where they could gust to 30 mph or so by morning. Scattered showers will spread north and east through the night, arriving in the Matagorda Bay area by midnight and across the rest of the metro area by morning on Thursday. Temperatures will only drop back a few degrees overnight, into the low-60s or so. They should even climb some toward morning.

Thursday

In a couple words: The worst of the weather tomorrow should occur from about 8 AM to 4 PM, with strong to locally severe thunderstorms, capable of producing strong winds, hail, and isolated tornadoes, as well as heavy rain.

We will have a couple things to watch for on Thursday. First and foremost, strong to severe thunderstorms may begin to break out across the area as early as the back half of the commute, after 8 AM or so. The atmosphere looks fairly primed to produce storms with strong winds, potentially some hail, and even a tornado or two around the region. This doesn’t look quite as foreboding as what we experienced almost a year ago back in January with the Pasadena tornado (which was an exceptional setup for severe weather here), but the parameters are definitely aligned for at least some severe weather.

More technically: There’s a pretty healthy amount of wind shear (wind changing direction with height) available tomorrow. You need wind shear for severe weather and tornado risk. But the window for that severe weather and tornado risk tomorrow looks conditional and narrow. In other words, we need the appropriate amount of instability to realize to generate thunderstorms. And on top of that, we need the storms to be able to tap into that shear and instability at low levels. This is not a slam dunk case for severe weather, but it’s enough to say that if storms can realize their full potential tomorrow there could be a couple tornadoes, especially north of I-10. We should have a better idea on this tomorrow and will have more for you before it gets messy out there.

In terms of rainfall, we are not expecting significant or widespread flooding. But street flooding is a decent possibility in a few spots tomorrow. Most areas will see a half inch to inch or so of rainfall, but a couple isolated spots will almost certainly see 2 to 3 inches of rain or even a bit more, much of which could fall quickly.

All this should start to clear off to our east by late afternoon and evening, leaving us with clouds and a few showers. Temperatures and humidity will build up tomorrow, with highs near 70, and you’ll feel the dampness.

Friday

The forecast gets a bit trickier on Friday. The storms of Thursday will be well off to our east as a cold front slips into the region. However, it looks as if this front may stall near the coast or just offshore. This would keep us generally a bit cloudy and unsettled with shower chances, depending on exactly where it stalls. Temperatures will be mainly in the 60s, with 70s will be possible near the coast on Friday. The exact placement of the front will determine how warm it is on Friday.

Weekend into next week

That front may backpedal onshore Saturday, bringing more clouds and showers. Morning lows will range from the 50s inland to 60s near or south of the front. By Sunday, the stalled front should be escorted out into the Gulf by a second cold front which will usher in cooler, drier air and hopefully some sunshine for early next week. Admittedly, I’m skeptical about much clearing right now but we’re still several days out.

Texans tailgating looks okay right now, with temperatures probably in the 50s to low-60s most of the morning, warming into the mid-60s or so for the afternoon. I’m not going to completely rule out a shower, but I would lean toward drier weather at the moment.

Temperatures will drop to the 60s for highs, 40s for lows early next week, and another warming trend may impact us next weekend.