Last week Eric offered a tip for Houston-area newbies for surviving Houston’s fearsome heat and houmidity. (And no, that’s not a typo.) That inspired many of you to offer your own suggestions for dealing with summer. We’ve compiled the best of the best so you can work on your climatological coping skills.

As a native of SE Texas, summer is hot and that’s the fact, Jack! But…I have found that, if I talk or complain about the heat in June or July, that just seems to prolong the summer unnecessarily. Instead, I avoid those water cooler conversations about the heat…until August, then I let it all hang out! Because sometimes fronts start making their way into H-Town a few weeks into September, and it cools down to like 88 degrees and everyone starts thinking it’s fall and pulls out their sweaters! This strategy of denial means you only have a month in a half of hot weather…August and maybe half of September! All our our newly arrived neighbors thank me when I share this strategy with them!

– Sharron Cox

I don’t know if it truly helps any, but my psychological trick to get through the summers recently has been to count the weeks instead of the days. 9 weeks til September just on some psychological level feels better than 74 days. Maybe it’s because by this point, we’re typically mowing once a week, and I really don’t wanna by the time August comes around. And I know we’re getting close to only needing to do single digit cuts left.

– Josh Sorensen

Face the heat head on. Go outside for a walk at 3 PM. Go for a run in the morning and greet the rising sun. Lay in the grass at 2 PM. Feel the radiation. Sweat through the humidity. Learn to love that which we cannot change. This is the best way to deal with summer heat in Houston. Before you know it, you will think 90 degrees feels moderate. A slight breeze and you will have goose bumps. September starts to feel chilly.

– Humidity connoisseur

I am a native, and have lived in two other places, Los Angeles and Saudi Arabia. When I start to feel as though summer will never end (and honestly, it’s hot through sometimes mid November here) I remember how I felt when I stepped off the plane onto the tarmac in Dhahran, and the humidity slapped me in the face. It was 110F in the summer there with 80 to 90% humidity. I will never forget that. Houston is absolutely awful, but that was just a smidge worse (at the time – we’ll see how things change 🙁 )

– Ashley

I also try not to complain too much until August, go swimming at night to reset my body temperature, and my new summer hack is hanging out in the cheese aisle at HEB. Even colder than a movie theater and can grocery shop too.

– Cheryl Detten

My Summer Survival Strategies:

1. Sit outside sometimes, to become acclimated, as another commenter said. The following two steps will help with this.

2. Cold iced Cafe du Monde made with tons of brown sugar and milk at 2 pm, outside. It’s the worst part of the day but you get to have coffee!

3. Wine and Chips O’Clock at 4 pm, outside. The worst part of the day’s heat is over! (I prefer white wine and potato chips.)

4. August 14: official Changing of the Morning Light Day. The sunlight in the morning changes from harsh blue-white to a softer yellow-white.

5. August 28 CHANGING OF THE LIGHT DAY!!! The light is noticably softer and golden. You have made it thru the worst. Only a month until the moveable feast that is COOL FRONT DAY!!!

Oh, and visit the gem and mineral section of the Science Museum. Like being in an ice cold glittery sparkly cave.

– Bea

One thing that gets me through the Houston summer is just knowing that for 8 months of the year between mid September and mid May the weather is actually quite decent and tolerable. Just gotta get through July and August and Fall will be right around the corner. 

– Anthony Stott

A trick I do is make it a point to get out for 20 or 30 minutes during the peak heat of the day. 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. I’ll get out and go for a motorcycle ride or do a little bit of work in the yard. Maybe just 15 minutes! lol. What this does is allows me to be absolutely scorched during that time and comparatively it makes the mornings and evenings feel much better.

– Scott Smith

Lived in Texas most of my life, especially the Houston area. Long enough to grasp the Biblical nature of this area: Dust to Dust, or Noah’s Ark.

– Shawn Harrison

If these pearls of heat-related wisdom inspire you to offer tips of your own, please do so in the comments!

In brief: With high pressure backing off for a few days, rain chances will be higher during the first half of this week. We also take a look at what is likely to come, weatherwise, for the remainder of summer in Houston.

Past is prelude?

As we often say here on Space City Weather, there are many definitions of summer. From a strictly meteorological standpoint, summer comprises the months of June, July, and August. In practicality, September is almost invariably a summer-like month in Houston as well, at least the first two or three weeks. So today we are going to take a look at what the region can expect during the next three months—effectively the rest of summer.

First, let’s look back at what has come so far. June, to date, has not felt super hot. However this has been masked by a relatively cool spell during the middle of the month when the city received widespread rains. There was about a week when the high temperature ranged from the 80s to lower 90s. At the same time, the city has also had more than a week of highs that reached 95 degrees, or higher. This is above the “normal” high for Houston, in June, 92 degrees. So when you add it all up, the average temperature this month is running about 2 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.

Looking ahead to July, August, and September, I rather think this is what we are most likely to see for the remainder of summer. Houston will probably see warmer than normal temperatures, but nothing too extreme. In other words, July and August are likely to bring plenty of days in the mid-90s, but perhaps only a sprinkling of days in triple digits. In terms of rainfall, the various seasonal models indicate near-normal precipitation for the remainder of summer. Hopefully this rain is fairly evenly distributed, rather than the result of one or two tropical systems. But of course that is something we cannot predict at this time.

Speaking of the heat, our partner Reliant offers a “Beat the Heat” program during the summer months to provide more than a dozen cooling centers across the Houston region. You can find a list of locations here. There is also a payment assistance program for people struggling to pay their electricity bills during the summer.

Finally, I want you to be on the lookout for a post later this morning, at 10 am. Last week I shared a tip on how I survive the summer, psychologically. You responded with some great suggestions of your own, and Dwight Silverman has collected them in a post. It’s great fun and I admire your creativity.

Monday

As we saw on Sunday, Houston’s atmosphere is a little more open to rainfall with high pressure having departed the region. That pattern will continue today, with rain chances of perhaps about 30 percent. To go along with this we will see partly to mostly sunny skies and high temperatures in the low- to mid-90s. Afternoon winds will peak at about 10 mph from the southeast, with higher gusts. Lows tonight will drop into the upper 70s.

Tuesday and Wednesday

The middle of the week should have the best rain chances, with probably at least half the area receiving rainfall each day. These will be the kinds of storms where some parts of Houston quickly pick up 1 or possibly 2 inches of rainfall, and many other areas see on the order of a tenth of an inch, or two. In other words, they will be hit or miss, and it’s not really possible to forecast right now where the heaviest rains will be. Highs both days will likely be in the lower 90s, with partly sunny skies.

Thursday and Friday

Rain chances will drop back to about 30 percent, daily, to end the work week as our atmosphere becomes a little bit more stable. As a result expect mostly sunny skies and warmer temperatures, with highs in the low- to mid-90s. Nights remain warm and humid, of course.

Saturday, Sunday, and beyond

Saturday’s weather probably will be a continuation of what we experience on Thursday and Friday, but by Sunday rain chances may be on the upswing again. At this point my expectations for Sunday into next week are ongoing daily rain chances in the vicinity of 30 to 50 percent each day, with highs in the lower-to-mid 90s. In other words, this pattern of fairly typical late June weather may well continue into early July.

In brief: Mostly minimal shower and storm coverage this weekend in Houston will increase by a good bit next week. Additionally, we take a look at why this hurricane season has started quieter than most recent ones.

Hurricane season so far

The forecast is pretty straightforward today, and we’ll get into that below. First, today is June 20th, and to this point I don’t think we’ve said a word at Space City Weather about hurricanes or tropical storms. It’s a refreshing change of pace after recent seasons. In fact, the last year that we did not have a storm in the Atlantic before July 1st was back in 2014. It’s been a while.

Meanwhile, the Pacific has been churning out storms apace this season, with five so far. Of course, only one of them (Erick, which just made landfall yesterday) was a big storm. Still, the conditions to this point this hurricane season have strongly favored the Pacific. You can thank dust and wind shear in the Atlantic for one, but those things aren’t abnormal, even in recent Junes. So there has to be more at play here.

We often talk about the “background state” of the atmosphere. You have individual tropical waves and systems and such through the year, but the background state is important. Are the overarching global weather conditions favorable for development or unfavorable? So far this June, we’ve had the majority of rising air, or a “favorable” background state for tropical development sitting over Central America. Rising air is what helps thunderstorms to develop. Since tropical weather generally moves east to west across the planet, this has meant that most seedlings for development are being planted in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Sinking air sits over Africa and extends all the way across to the Caribbean islands. Sinking air tends to suppress cloud development and dry the air out a bit. By the time any waves can really get going, they more than likely end up over land or kicked into the Pacific.

Over the next couple weeks, this pattern is unlikely to change a whole heck of a lot, but we may start to see slightly more favorable conditions emerge over Africa or the far eastern Atlantic by early July. That said, there are no guarantees that actually means anything. Realistically, the next 7 to 10 days look calm and the 10-to-14-day period has no signs of meaningful change yet.

We do still expect an average to above average hurricane season; June’s activity has no real correlation to the rest of the season, so you can’t decipher any relationships. But when you can get a hassle-free month in hurricane season, you take it without complaints.

Bottom line: You still have time to prepare for hurricane season.

Today

We had a slightly higher coverage of showers yesterday than we did Wednesday, and today should be fairly similar. Most of us will stay dry, but some areas could see up to an inch of rain or so in a cooling downpour. We hit 95 yesterday officially, and we should make a run for that again today.

Weekend

The coverage of showers may actually decrease some this weekend. Both Saturday and Sunday carry something like a 15 to 20 percent chance of a shower. Doesn’t mean it won’t rain, but it does mean the odds aren’t high! Sunday probably carries a slight edge over Saturday in terms of higher shower coverage. Temperatures will be steady with low to mid 90s for highs and mid to upper 70s for lows away from the coast, with low 80s at the coast.

Next week

While this week was pretty quiet after Monday, next week should be a bit busier each day. We’ll probably carry 30 to 40 percent or even higher rain chances each afternoon, with pop up thunderstorms.

The culprit will actually be the high pressure system responsible for record heat that I’m sure you’ll hear about in the news across the Eastern U.S. As that anchors over the Appalachians, it will actually open the door to added Gulf moisture in Texas. Precipitable water (or how much moisture is available in the atmosphere) increases about 25 percent or more next week compared to today. That should help boost thunderstorm coverage each day.

The increased coverage of storms probably means we see more low-90s for highs and 70s for lows areawide next week.

In brief: Houston’s forecast remains largely the same: highs in the low 90s with a few, sporadic showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon through the weekend. Next week should see somewhat better rain chances. I also share a tip that helps me survive summer in Houston.

A beginner’s guide to surviving summer in Houston (psychologically)

There are some people who love summer in Houston. They love the heat. They love the long days with 14 hours of sunshine. They love the ability to get a tan in about 15 minutes in the middle of the day. They abhor the onset of fall because it means the end of summer. If you’re one of those people I have two things to say to you. One, bless your heart. And two, the following section is not for you. Please skip ahead.

OK, those who are still reading “survive” summer in Houston rather than “thrive,” right? I grew up in Michigan, but moved to Texas in 1991, and arrived in H-town in 1997. This will, therefore, be my 28th summer in our (fair?) city. Growing up in Michigan I had never experienced a hurricane nor the humidity that comes along with dewpoints in the upper 70s. But in the decades since then I have learned a couple of tricks that, psychologically at least, help me weather summer weather here. I want to share one of them today.

I’m writing this post now because, in some sense, our turn toward fall begins tomorrow, on the summer solstice. It is the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere (in Houston it will be 14 hours, 2 minutes, and 18 seconds, to be precise). You probably think I’m crazy. By some definitions, this is the beginning of summer! However, it also means that, starting with Saturday, every day will be that little bit shorter for the next six months. The Sun will be that little bit lower in the sky. Accordingly we are sliding toward fall, however slowly.

Of course the hottest time of the year still remains about six to eight weeks from now, due to a variety of factors including the fact that it takes longer for water to heat up than land. And fall, in reality, is at least three months away. So this trick is just psychological. But for me, just the fact that the days are getting a wee bit shorter helps me realize that fall will come even though it is hot as blazes outside. After tomorrow, it’s inevitable.

Thursday

Our weather won’t be changing much from today through the weekend. The predominant pattern remains one of modest high pressure that will limit (but not completely exclude) rain and keep temperatures in the low 90s. For today, that means high temperatures generally in the lower 90s, with mostly sunny skies and southerly winds at 5 to 10 mph. The sea breeze this afternoon will likely spark a few afternoon showers and thunderstorms, but I expect these to be fairly scattered in nature. Lows tonight will be in the upper 70s.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

We are basically locked into the same pattern through the weekend. If you have outdoor plans you can generally expect sunny skies, but you may have to briefly dodge a few showers. Overall daily rain chances are probably in the ballpark of 20 percent. Otherwise late June is going to feel like late June.

Next week

As high pressure begins to ease off to the east, overall atmospheric conditions will begin to favor increased rain chances. I don’t think we’re looking at any type of flooding, but we should see enough light to moderate rainfall next week to help limit high temperatures to about 90 degrees for most of the week. All in all, conditions look to be fairly mild for June in Houston, which isn’t nothing.