Good morning. Today is the longest day of the year, with a length of 14 hours, 3 minutes, and 30 seconds. For Texas, however, there is typically a considerable lag in peak heating, which does not come until August. This is due both to the fact that July and August are often the region’s sunniest months, as well as warmth moving in from the Gulf of Mexico as it continues to heat up during the next few months. Will July or August be hotter than our torrid June this year? We’ll see.

Later this morning, look for a sponsored post from Reliant on taking advantage of all this sunshine with solar energy. And tomorrow, thanks in large part to your submissions, we’ll publish a top 10 list of “reasons why this summer heat and drought are just the best.” Yes, there will be some sarcasm in that list.

Tuesday

Houston had its warmest day of the year on Monday, when the thermometer at Bush Intercontinental Airport reached 102 degrees. Temperatures today should be a couple of degrees cooler, as there is a chance for a few more clouds to form, and some isolated showers and thunderstorms later this morning and into the early afternoon hours. If you get hit by a quick shower, consider yourself very lucky. Otherwise expect highs in the upper 90s, with light southeast winds.

Wednesday

This will be a day a lot like Tuesday, with isolated showers and highs in the upper 90s.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

Our confidence is high that the heat wave will peak toward the end of this week and weekend, as high pressure builds directly over the region. Look for daily highs of 100 degrees or perhaps even a touch higher. Sunday at this point looks to be the hottest day, and hoo-boy is it going to be hot. Bru-tal.

Next week

At some point next week, likely on Monday or Tuesday, high pressure will back off some and bring our high temperatures back into the upper 90s, or a bit lower. We should also start to see more clouds and even a moderate chance of rainfall. Do I have great confidence in precipitation next week? I do not. But at least there’s a decent chance. Anything will be better than Sunday.

We realize that after surviving last week’s extraordinary heat you are probably reading this in hopes of seeing some hope of respite on the horizon. To make a long story short, there’s very little of that of this week. We’re sorry.

As for the heat last week, it truly was quite a bit beyond normal. The average high temperature was 98 degrees across the city, and it now seems certain that we’re going to beat an ugly record. Longtime residents will probably remember the summer of 2011 in Houston. I recall it because, during the month of August, every single day but one recorded a high temperature of 100 degrees or above. Anyway, June of 2011 was extremely hot that year as well, with an average temperature (that’s the daily high and low, divided by two) of 86.2 degrees. Well, my friends, through Sunday we’re averaging 86.5 degrees for this month. And the next 10 days look considerably hotter, so we’re going to smash the temperature record for June in 2011. No, I don’t know if that means this August will be like August 2011. It’s possible, but not a certainty.

If all of this depresses you, we’re here to help. We’re going to create a top 10 list reasons why this year’s heat and drought is actually kind of a good thing. I realize that finding 10 reasons is going to be a struggle, so I’d like your help. If you have suggestions, please leave a comment here, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or send an email.

Monday

High pressure remains the dominant factor in our weather, and high temperatures today should reach 100 degrees for most locations away from the coast. However, there is a slight chance—perhaps 10 to 20 percent—of showers developing along the sea breeze later today. Winds will be light, out of the east-southeast at 5 to 10 mph. Lows tonight may not drop below 80 degrees for most locations.

Tuesday

Conditions will be a couple of degrees cooler on Tuesday, as there may be a few clouds. Rain chances will probably jump to 20 to 30 percent, and this looks to be the day with the best option for rain for the next week. Look for highs in the mid- to upper-90s.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

Heat really builds over the region, beneath the ridge of high pressure. Wednesday may stay in the upper 90s, but Thursday and Friday should see temperatures reach triple digits beneath sunny skies. Hot, hot, hot.

Saturday and Sunday

The heat wave looks to peak this weekend, with temperature readings between 100 to 105 degrees for most locations. It’s going to be brutal.

Next week

The models are fairly consistent in showing the high pressure ridge breaking down about a week from now, and temperatures dropping back into the mid-90s with some better rain chances by next Tuesday or Wednesday. That is a hopeful sign, but because this is forecast to happen 7 or 8 days from now, it is far from something we can take to the bank, I’m afraid.

Yesterday’s drought monitor update showed that drought has indeed expanded around the Houston area, rather significantly too.

Coverage of drought increased almost 10 percent, while coverage of extreme drought (Level 3 of 4) in the southern half of the region almost tripled week over week. We are still well behind 2011’s pace. At this point in 2011, the entire metro area was in level 4 of 4 (exceptional drought) compared to 0 percent today. But we are clearly in drought now, and it’s only going to get more extensive from here.

That said, we may get a little relief today!

Today

Today is beginning on a quiet, warm note once again. But there are actually some showers on radar in Louisiana, which indicates a weak little disturbance passing by. As that moves through our area today, we should expect to see at least a handful of showers or downpours develop. Let’s be fair here: Rain chances are only about 20 to 30 percent, but it’s the highest they have been recently and the highest they will be for a while to come.

There’s a better chance you won’t see rain today than you will, but at least there’s a chance. Aside from that, expect mid to upper 90s with sun, clouds, and a touch of Saharan dust still.

Saturday and Sunday

For the weekend, the good news is that if you’re planning anything for Father’s Day or Juneteenth celebrations, you probably won’t get rained on. The better news is that the Saharan dust will be outta’ here as well. So it will look a bit less hazy outside.

Of course, we stand a really good chance at finally breaching the 100 degree mark officially this weekend (yes, many of you already have reached this point but IAH has not), particularly on Sunday. Either way, it looks hot.

Next week

More of the same. 100 degree chances are with us Monday and maybe Tuesday with very slim to no rain chances. Atmospheric moisture levels look rather low most of next week, so I don’t expect much if any rainfall for most of the week.

Temperatures may actually bottom out on Tuesday or Wednesday. With a rebuilding ridge toward the end of the week, we may actually see our hottest weather of summer so far. More on that Monday. Whether it’s 98 or 102 next week, it’s just going to be hot.

Nothing out there we need to monitor for the tropics at this time.

I’ll leave on a quick note: If you missed Eric’s post yesterday, version 1.5 of the Space City Weather app is now available, and we encourage you to upgrade and inform us of any bugs you encounter. Thank you as always for your support.

When we launched the Space City Weather app last year, our goal was to give Houston-area residents everything they needed to know about local weather in a fast, readable, and intuitive format. We feel like we met that goal, and judging from your reaction, so did you! We were blown away by the number of downloads, which quickly surpassed 100,000, and has continued to grow. We’re also glad to see people using the app, particularly when it was needed most during periods of severe weather.

Because that was just the beginning for the app, we asked what features you’d like to see, and to let us know about bugs and frustrations. You gave us plenty of feedback, and for the past few months we’ve been using that data to make a more perfect SCW app. In large part due to your generous support during our 2021 fundraiser, we’ve been able to make some significant upgrades.

To that end, today we’re announcing version 1.5, and we consider it a collaboration with our users. Here’s what is new:

• The Houston area is a big place, and weather in one locale can be dramatically different from conditions in another. So we’ve more than doubled the number of cities in the app to a full dozen. We now track Houston (IAH), Hobby airport, Conroe, Galveston, Katy, Tomball, Beaumont, League City, Sugar Land, Lake Jackson, Baytown and Pearland. Tap the three-line menu in the upper left of the main page to see the list, and switch locations.

• We’ve added rain chance percentages to both the hourly and daily forecast tables on the main page.

• There’s a new, live National Weather Service radar page, accessible by tapping either the radar thumbnail at the bottom of the main page or the new Radar icon at the bottom of the app. You can zoom in and out to get a closer or wider look at radar conditions.

• You can now toggle between Fahrenheit and Celsius in Settings.

• We’ve fixed some frequently reported bugs, such as Android users’ inability to zoom in and out of images.

• There are tweaks to the layout and interface to make the app more attractive and intuitive. For example, the Settings icon is now found at the top of the list of cities for quicker access. 

There are two things we have not changed. We still don’t collect your personal information or do any kind of tracking. And, of course, there’s still no hype in Eric and Matt’s blog posts. 

The new version of the app should be showing up as an update for both iOS and Android users. And if you haven’t yet installed it, you can find it in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store by searching for “Space City Weather.”

We hope you enjoy SCW 1.5. If you run into any problems, let us know via email at [email protected]. And keep those feature requests coming. We’re already thinking about what to do next!