Today marks the autumnal equinox, which means it is the first day of fall. But Houston has felt anything like fall so far this September, as low temperatures have rarely fallen below 75 degrees. The city has yet to see its first real fall cool front—which for the purposes of Houston we define as a daily minimum of 65 degrees or cooler. As you can see on the chart below, the first fall front typically comes around September 16th, or one week ago. The bad news is that there is no front on Houston’s horizon for the next week or so, but the good news that I don’t think we’ll quite break 2005’s record, and have to wait all the way until October 7th. More below.

Monday

On Sunday, some nasty but very localized storms developed in northwest Houston along Cypress Creek near the Willowbrook area. We’re going to see the potential for similar storms today, although there should be a bit more south-to-north motion as moisture streams in from the Gulf of Mexico. Overall rain chances are about 50 percent, and while accumulations for most will be under one-half inch, we can’t rule out some isolated thunderstorms bringing a quick 1 to 2 inches of rain. High temperatures should be near 90 degrees.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday

As high pressure extends its reach over the Houston area, we should see rain chances drop back to around 10 to 20 percent for each of the mid-week days. Accordingly, we should see high temperatures around 90 degrees, with overnight lows in the low- to mid-70s. Mostly sunny skies should really help the area dry out after Tropical Storm Imelda’s nastiness.

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Imelda is thankfully in our rear-view mirror now, and we can begin the process of cleaning up from the latest in a slew of problematic flooding events in Southeast Texas in recent years. Eric and I will take some time to process this and recap it for you in some capacity next week. The weather doesn’t stop, so let’s discuss our weekend.

First, let’s talk about residual Imelda-related issues. Most bayous across central, southern, and western Harris County are back in their banks this morning. We do still have flooding issues in eastern Harris County.

• Greens Bayou is still out of banks downstream of Highway 59 to the Ship Channel. It has crested and should be back in its banks soon at Mount Houston. Greens will continue slowly falling downstream today.
• Garners Bayou is out of its banks at the Beltway, but is falling.
• Cedar Bayou has crested at Highway 90 and is falling. It should crest soon at FM 1942.
• Both the East and West Forks of the San Jacinto River have crested in major flood. They should both be back in moderate flood later today.

The San Jacinto River near Sheldon (above) continues to rise and should crest this afternoon before slowly falling this weekend.

Folks living along the Brazos River, you have nothing to worry about, as rains both over you and upriver were not too significant this week.

Those trying to travel to or from Beaumont, note that I-10 is shutdown at the San Jacinto River due to multiple barge strikes. And it sounds like it might be awhile.

I-10 East Freeway EB and WB at the San Jacinto River all mainlanes are closed. Several barges have impacted the bridges at this location. This is a developing situation that is further enhanced by the river rising. No est. time on reopening. Use SH 225 as an alternate. pic.twitter.com/DLpw4YH4TZ

— TxDOT- HOU District (@TxDOTHouston) September 20, 2019

I-10 also remains closed in both directions between Winnie and Beaumont due to high water.

Today

Not everyone will see showers or storms today, but they will be around. Any storms today will probably move south to north at a slow, steady clip, so they could put down a quick inch or so of rain. While this won’t lead to widespread problems, there could be a handful of locations today that see some short-fused street flooding or some rises on bayous. Again, we don’t expect anything significant. With a good deal of clouds still, we should see highs in the mid- to upper-80s.

Weekend

Both Saturday and Sunday should see a mix of sun and clouds with just a chance of a shower or storm in a few spots. We’re sort of back to typical late summer this weekend. Look for highs near 90 degrees or in the low-90s and lows in the mid- to upper-70s.

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As anticipated, the greater Houston area radar has quieted down considerably with the loss of daytime heating. And thank goodness for that.

During the overnight hours we can’t rule out development of additional showers and thunderstorms, but we’d expect these to be fairly scattered and are not particularly concerned about additional, prolonged heavy rain. We just do not anticipate anything too organized getting going—although Lord knows Imelda has surprised us. Rain chances are probably a little higher to the east of Interstate 45 tonight, but again we don’t expect accumulations to be more than about a quarter of an inch where rain does fall.

We are well beyond the worst of Imelda, but we’re likely to see a decent chance of scattered storms on Friday, with chances diminishing further into the weekend. We should see mostly sunny days with highs in the upper 80s on Saturday and Sunday, which sounds pretty darn nice after all we’ve been through. Matt will have a comprehensive update in the morning.

Good afternoon, everyone. Before jumping into the forecast, I just wanted to provide some perspective. Since the National Hurricane Center began naming Atlantic storms in 1950, just two tropical storms have had their names retired: Allison, in 2001; and Erika in 2015. Soon we will have three, with Imelda.

Many readers will certainly remember Allison. It made me want to become a meteorologist. Tropical Storm Erika was a prodigious rainmaker that killed 31 people in Dominica and Haiti. There will be time over the coming days to put Imelda into historical perspective. But here are a few quick thoughts:

• For parts of Golden Triangle, the rain intensity and impacts were worse than Hurricane Harvey, which is staggering.
• For that region, Imelda is overall worse than Tropical Storm Allison was for Houston.
• And in Houston, this Allison-lite. The heaviest rains (25″+) so far have been in relatively rural parts of Montgomery County. Amazingly, there are locations in Harris County under 1 inch for the entire storm.

Thursday evening

You don’t need a meterologist to tell you that the incredibly productive rainfall band that began this morning in Montgomery and Liberty counties has sagged southward, soaked Harris County, and is now mercifully now moved toward the exits. It should (mostly) continue to push slowly out of Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston counties between now and sunset.

The atmosphere over Houston is pretty worked over. We should generally see diminishing storm coverage heading into sunset, and later this evening although we can’t rule out the re-development of some showers and thunderstorms. For the Houston metro area, we feel pretty good about not seeing another super-organized band of storms like we saw today—or anything approaching it. Areas far north of Houston, and we’re thinking more Walker and San Jacinto counties than Montgomery and Liberty counties, could see some more organized development later tonight.

Friday

Scattered showers will be possible Friday, but these generally should pop up, move through, and be done. They could exacerbate flooding in some areas, but their transience means they should not cause significant problems in and of themselves. Conditions continue to improve over the weekend.

Alas the damage is done. Anyone traveling today likely had a rough go of things. If you can stay home this evening, please do so. The roads should generally improve for tomorrow morning, but that assumes the forecast behaves tonight. If you experienced flood damage today, I am so sorry. Imelda has sucked and needs to move on.

Note: The site will go down for 10-15 minutes at about 6pm CT Thursday to ensure another outage like Wednesday night does not occur.