The high temperature on both Saturday and Sunday topped out at 90 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport, making for a warm weekend. If you’re tired of Houston’s long, long summer—the region had its first 90-degree day back on April 9 of this year—the good news is that we’re probably done with 90-degree days for 2019. In fact, we should mostly be in the 70s for this coming week and weekend.
Monday
A line of storms will push through Houston at around sunrise, or a little before, on Monday morning. A few of these storms are fairly strong, but the line is moving from northwest to southeast fairly quickly, so we don’t have any flooding concerns. Most areas should see about one inch of rain. Unfortunately the storms will hit during the morning commute for some people. The front should be off the coast by or before noon. In the wake of the front, highs today should hold in the 70s, with most of Houston falling into the upper 50s on Monday night with clearing skies.
Monday night low temperatures will be quite nice. (Pivotal Weather)
Tuesday and Wednesday
These will be a pair of gorgeous days, with cool mornings in the upper 50s (except along the coast), mostly sunny skies, and highs in the upper 70s to possibly 80 degrees. An onshore flow resumes on Wednesday night, which should nudge lows into the mid-60s.
After a mostly cloudy Thursday, expect sunshine to return in force today and for much of the upcoming weekend. Buckle up for a mini-temperature roller coaster though, as we crank the heat this weekend before our next cold front on Monday.
Today and Saturday
Out in the Gulf, we have Potential Tropical Cyclone 16 chugging off to the northeast this morning.
The National Hurricane Center says PTC 16 will race off to the northeast toward the Florida Panhandle by tomorrow morning. (NHC/NOAA)
While it won’t directly impact southeast Texas, behind it, dry air is locking into place over our area. Other than a few lingering clouds south and east of Houston this morning, that spells sunshine today. Look for temperatures to be pleasantly warm and pop up to the low-80s this afternoon. Clear skies tonight may allow for a little patchy fog to develop in inland parts of the region. After that lifts on Saturday, we will see sunshine and temperatures warm up from the lower or middle 60s into the mid- to upper-80s. A stray shower is possible toward evening, mainly south of Houston.
Sunday
Sunday should see a mix of sun and clouds, though the clouds will gradually populate more of the sky on Sunday afternoon. A few showers can’t be entirely ruled out on Sunday, as a more aggressive push of warm air off the Gulf lifts north.
High temperatures on Sunday look more like late summer than autumn, with mid- to upper-80s across most of the region. (NWS forecast via Weather Bell)
It will feel like late summer on Sunday, with temperatures warming from near 70° in the morning into the upper-80s Sunday afternoon. Some spots could top off around 90 degrees or so.
Houston will enjoy one more day of fall-like weather before we transition back into warmer weather for the weekend. But by Monday or so we should enter a more prolonged period of cooler, fall-like weather.
Thursday
After starting out in the 50s for all but the immediate coast, today will rise into the low- to mid-70s. Houston is not going to get warmer than that due to a cool, northerly breeze as well as fairly persistent cloud cover. Low temperatures on Thursday night should be similar to Wednesday night, albeit a degree or two warmer.
As the onshore winds return Friday, temperatures will warm some. But this still will be a fairly nice day, with highs of around 80 degrees and mostly sunny skies.
Saturday
The first day of the weekend will be quite warm. As I’ve been suggesting, this weekend will probably be the last time the Houston region has a chance for high temperatures in the 90s this calendar year. (Houston has never hit 90 degrees, on record, after October 29th). In any case, Saturday, will be hot and sunny, with temperatures in the upper 80s to lower 90s.
In the wake of Tropical Storm Imelda, Eric and I wanted to reintroduce the Space City Weather Flood Scale, as well as place that memorable storm in its proper context. We’ll tackle Imelda in a moment, but first just a a few words about the slightly revised flood scale.
(Space City Weather)
When we first introduced the flood scale, we didn’t really go too much depth on the various stages. We now realize that leaving any ambiguity in the interpretation of this was probably a mistake, so the goal here is to explain our scale in more depth and detail so readers have complete clarity on what it is meant to convey.
Origin & what it does
In the wake of Hurricane Harvey and all the flooding events in recent years, it occurred to me that we needed a way to put future rain forecasts in context with past events. Eric and I decided on a five-stage, or category scale. The scale is not meant to be perfect for everyone. Nor is it meant to replace forecast advice or direction from the National Weather Service or emergency managers. All it is meant to do is to set a realistic expectation ahead of a rainfall event that we feel could produce newsworthy flooding. We just want to attempt to help people navigate their anxieties regarding flooding that we know are widespread after recent years.
The scale is meant to characterize, in the general grand scheme of things, how the flood will be remembered for in Houston. Yes, your car may flood in a nuisance street flooding event, “only” a stage 1 on our scale. For you, personally, that may be a stage 5 life event. While that would certainly be unfortunate, for the greater Houston area, nuisance street flooding is rather common, and Stage 1 events happen at least a few times per year. What we want to do is make sure people understand that an upcoming rain event is more like that than a Memorial Day 2015 event, a Tax Day 2016 event, or an Imelda, and vice versa.
What it does not do
This scale is not going to tell you if you will experience flooding. Every flood event is unique. Just because you may have received 40 inches over 5 days and not flooded during Harvey, that does not mean you also won’t flood during a storm that only produces 6 inches of rain that falls in a single hour. Flooding in any given rainstorm depends on numerous factors, including quantity of rain, duration, intensity, neighborhood drainage, and conditions in place prior to the rain. Since no two storms are identical, you cannot always rely on past storms to tell you how future ones may impact you in your backyard.
The historic examples are not meant to apply perfectly to any one individual neighborhood. We may classify an event as stage 2 because it caused localized flooding in The Woodlands or Kingwood or Sugar Land. For some folks in those neighborhoods that flooded, that historic example may feel like a stage 3 or 4 event because of the problems it caused you and your neighbors. In other neighborhoods, you may not have noticed a drop of rain. What we want to do is put the event into context in the Greater Houston area. This scale is a perfect example of “your mileage may vary.” We recognize that, but we also know there is no perfect scale. This is the closest thing we could think of to a one-size fits all solution.
The scale is just attempting to characterize the “personality” of the flooding event we expect.
Let’s take you through each stage and discuss what each one means and what the past events did.
