Cristobal causes heat in Houston, but may some relief be in sight?

Yesterday was Houston’s hottest day since May 20th. We hit 94° on Thursday, and that’s a preview of things to come. We have no real changes in our expectations that Cristobal (now a depression) will miss to our east. The main impact from Cristobal in Houston will be heat, thanks to drier air on the western fringe of the storm.

Today

Expect a quiet Friday overall. We’ll start with some patchy low clouds or fog in spots but transition to partly to mostly sunny skies this afternoon. Highs will be in the low-90s for Houston, cooler at the coast and hotter inland. Yes, a few showers or slow moving downpours could again flare up with daytime heating, but we expect most of the area to stay dry.

Saturday

Rinse and repeat. Cristobal will still be well off to our southeast at this time, and we should see mostly a repeat of Friday’s relatively nice (albeit hot) summer weather. Perhaps one or two will see a cooling downpour, but most will not. Highs will again average in the low- to mid-90s.

Sunday

As long as Cristobal keeps tracking toward central or western Louisiana as expected, that would likely mean a dry and hot day on Sunday. Expect mid-90s.

Sunday will be rather hot, with mid-90s likely. (Weather Bell)

I try to view things as optimistically as possible, so I’ll just add here that while Sunday will likely be hot, it will be a little less humid than we have been of late. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

Showers on Sunday? Probably not many. Part of Cristobal’s cloud canopy could be noticeable east of I-45, which could mute temperatures a little in those areas. But rain would probably stay in Louisiana on Sunday.

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With Cristobal likely headed east, Houston to feel the heat

Good morning. We’re approaching the longest day of the year—June 20—but we’ve already reached the earliest sunrise of the calendar year for Houston. From June 3 to June 17, sunrise will occur at 6:20 am CT before it starts to get later. Our sunsets will continue to get later until July 2. (Why is this? Well, it’s a bit complicated). Weather-wise, we’re looking at a lot of sunshine in the week ahead as long as Tropical Storm Cristobal stays east of Houston, which is looking increasingly likely.

100-degree temperatures are coming to West Texas today. They may reach East Texas next week. (Pivotal Weather)

Thursday

We should see partly sunny skies today, which will allow high temperatures to nudge up to 90 degrees or slightly above. Some showers and thunderstorms will be possible today, but they’re not going to be as organized as we saw on Wednesday. Some models are hinting at the best chance of rain between Houston and Beaumont, but even then it’s a really scattered shot at showers. Most of us will just be dry and hot, with light winds out of the southeast.

Friday

Expect a similar day to Thursday, although perhaps a touch warmer. We expect to see high pressure building in from the west—the same high pressure that will probably help steer Cristobal east of the region—and this will set the region on a warming trend into the weekend and likely beyond.

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Showers possible today, Houston heating up, and a Cristobal update

Good morning. Houston is seeing warm and humid conditions this week, as one would expect in June. However, we still have a ways to go in terms of summertime heat, and the region should reach the mid-90s by Saturday. The question remains about what happens after that, and it almost entirely depends on what happens with Tropical Storm Cristobal. At the moment, it still appears as though the storm and the bulk of its effects will probably stay east of Houston, but we’re far from being able to make a definitive call on that.

Wednesday

Today should produce the region’s best chance of showers and thunderstorms until at least Sunday. A combination of daytime heating, ample moisture in the atmosphere, and only moderate high pressure should allow for some storms to fire up this afternoon before fading this evening. High resolution models offer a mixed bag of solutions, bit given our recent pattern I’m fairly bullish on at least some moderately strong storms firing up closer to the coast and pushing inland later today. Areal coverage of these storms will probably be in the 30 to 50 percent range, so not everyone is going to get wet. Otherwise, expect partly sunny skies with highs of about 90 degrees.

Expect high temperatures to push into the mid-90s by Saturday. (Pivotal Weather)

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday

As high pressure settles into the area we should see a warming trend, with partly to mostly sunny skies through Saturday, and highs rising into the mid-90s. Under such a pattern we normally would expect only slight afternoon rain chances along the sea breeze.

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Cristobal forms in the Gulf—models trending toward Louisiana

Tropical Storm Cristobal formed earlier today, but Matt and I wanted to wait until after the 12z model runs came in before posting an update. Now that these forecasts are in (I promise I’m only going to do this once, but I can’t help myself) we’re going to look into our …

C R I S T O B A L   C R Y S T A L    B A L L

(If you hate that pun please direct your ire to a former colleague of mine). On to the forecast!

Tropical Storm Cristobal as it formed Tuesday. (NOAA)

Anyway, the big picture story with Cristobal remains the same: It’s going to wobble around the Southern Gulf of Mexico for the next three or four days. In the process, it is going to drench parts of Mexico and Central America already hard hit by Tropical Storm Amanda’s crossing of the area this past weekend. And then some kind of system—still hard to say what, because we don’t know how much the center of Cristobal will interact with the Mexican coast—is going to get pulled north by Friday or Saturday.

The trend today has been a continued shift in the models bringing the center of Cristobal not into Texas, but Louisiana. This is evident in all of the major global models, including the European and GFS ensembles. Overall confidence is still very low, given that we’re not quite sure what sort of system is going to eject out of the Southern Gulf of Mexico later this week. But the models seem to be finding a more pronounced weakness in the high pressure over the southern United States allowing Cristobal to take a more northern path. Things could easily shift back toward Texas, but we wanted to confirm that that model this trend is legitimate in both operational and ensemble forecasts.

European model ensemble forecast for Cristobal’s center of circulation on Monday morning. (Weather Bell)

The global models seem to be less bullish on hurricane development as well, as a lot of the ensembles are now predicting a tropical storm, or a loosely organized storm moving toward the Gulf coast. Again lots of uncertainty here. But in this kind of scenario we would expect most of the rain and winds to be on the “wet” or right side of the storm. Effectively, this means that if Cristobal were to make landfall at the border between Texas and Louisiana, Houston may not see much of an impact.

The bottom line is that many different scenarios are still in play, but for Texas the trends are good. We all need to keep watching, however, and especially closely if you live in Louisiana or points immediately east of there.