A peek ahead at hurricane season

We’ll get to the forecast in a moment, but first I wanted to discuss the forthcoming Atlantic hurricane season, which begins on June 1. Matt addressed this topic last week, but we’ve continued to receive questions about the upcoming season, largely due to an alarming forecast that has gone viral. I would echo precisely what he said, that you should treat any calls for an extremely active season, at this point, with a very healthy dose of skepticism.

This is especially so for the coming season, because it’s not clear whether an El Niño or a La Niña will develop in the Pacific Ocean (see embedded tweet below from National Hurricane Center forecaster Eric Blake, a friend of the site) this summer. The presence, or absence, of an El Niño is the single greatest predictor of activity during an Atlantic hurricane season.

Because we have no confidence in whether an El Niño, La Niña, or none at all will develop during the months of the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season, we can have a corresponding lack of confidence in tropical activity during the season itself. So please, don’t sweat it. Now, onto this week and weekend’s forecast, when we at least have a decent chance of coming close to the mark.

Wednesday

It’s chilly this morning across the region, with lows generally in the mid- to upper-40s except for areas along the coast. With full sunshine we can expect a banner day, with highs in the mid-70s across most of Houston. Then, we’ll see another gorgeous sunset and low temperatures tonight about 10 degrees warmer. This probably will be one of the nicest days of the year in Houston. Savor it.

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Not exactly Houston—humidity levels fall to 12 percent

The front that pushed into Houston on Monday brought some very dry air with it. The relative humidity level at Bush Intercontinental Airport dropped to 15 percent during the afternoon hours, and Hobby Airport reached 12 percent. These are Arizona levels of dryness, and we can look forward to a few more days which are nearly as dry.

Relative humidity levels (green line) are shown at Hobby Airport for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. (National Weather Service)

Tuesday and Wednesday

We’re going to have a couple of great, mostly sunny days as the region remains under the influence of northwesterly winds and high pressure. Expect high temperatures in the 70s, for the most part, and lows in the upper 40s for areas well inland (i.e. Montgomery County) and in the 50s for central and southern parts of the region. These will be fine, low-humidity days.

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Very dry air today, pleasant for most of this week in Houston

Good morning. I just wanted to say a quick thank you to Matt for covering the site last week while I was on vacation—it felt good to fully unplug for awhile. I am sorry to have missed some great weather last week, however. Now I’m back, and ready for the spring storm season (some northern areas, such as Montgomery County, got a taste of severe thunderstorms on Sunday evening), and summer is lurking around the corner as well.

Monday

The radar is clear this morning across the Houston area, but that should change shortly after sunrise as a cool front approaches the area. I expect a broken line of showers, and possibly a thunderstorm or two, to develop along the front as it reaches Houston during the morning hours, and moves well off the coast by noon. Over the areas they develop, these storms should not produce significant accumulations as they will be fast moving. I was actually hoping for a bit more widespread showers today, because that might help shake some of the extremely heavy tree pollen levels out of the air.

It will be a warm day Monday, but humidity levels will be extremely low. (Pivotal Weather)

With sunny skies today, and very dry air moving in behind the cool front, we should see highs climbing into the low to mid-80s across the area. Given the very dry air mass—humidities could be in the teens across the area—please take care if handling fire as it won’t take much to start a wildfire, and for it to spread. With the drier air, temperatures will drop off pretty quickly tonight as the sun sets.

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Weekend should not be ruined despite rain chances

As we head into the weekend, rain chances will be with us most of the time. Truthfully, while we can’t tell you exactly when and where it’s going to rain, the weekend should be peppered with plenty of dry periods. More on that in a second.

But we actually could use a bit of rain. We finished about two to three inches above normal in February, but the combination of a small deficit in January and over an inch deficit so far in March means we’re close to average for this point in the year. When you consider the autumn rainfall deficit we had, we’re certainly not in bad shape but it could be better.

While Houston isn’t in drought, much of West Texas is, with the worst in the Panhandle. (Drought Monitor)

The Drought Monitor update from yesterday shows that about 54% of Texas is in drought now, with almost 15% (all in the Panhandle region) in extreme drought. In the Houston area, we’re technically drought-free, but you don’t have to go too far west to hit moderate drought. With rainfall over the next 10 days probably averaging at or below normal, we should see moderate drought slowly begin to creep back in on the outskirts of our area by the end of March. We’ll see how it goes, but a little rain would not be a bad thing right now.

On to the forecast.

Today

Cloud cover is in firm control this morning, and it will stay mainly cloudy through the day today. Rain chances will be with us basically all day, but there’s a big caveat here: It’s probably not going to be too bad in Houston. We’ll have some light rain showers or drizzle around this morning. We’ll have a few more showers or a rogue thunderstorm nearby this afternoon. But the best odds for some steadier rainfall will be east of Houston. So the way I’m characterizing today is a few showers or some pockets of light rain, but no need to cancel plans or anything. Temperatures will ramp up to around or above 80 degrees this afternoon.

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