Good morning, and happy Friday! This will be a relatively brief post, as we have a limited amount of weather issues to discuss for once.

First, let’s do some quick housekeeping on flooding on some of the larger rivers in the region. The West Fork of the San Jacinto River near Humble appears to be cresting this morning on the threshold of moderate flooding. It will recede over the next couple days.

The East Fork will see minor flooding, while the Trinity River at Liberty continues to see major flooding.

Along the Brazos, minor to just shy of moderate flooding is expected near Hempstead, while a slow rise downstream at Richmond should push the river to near or just below minor flooding levels by midweek next week.

Further downstream at Rosharon, minor to borderline moderate flooding is expected next week as well. Flooding along the Brazos is being fed by inflows from the Navasota River, which is in moderate flood north of College Station.

Today through Sunday

Mostly sunny skies will prevail on each of the next three days across all of Southeast Texas. The only blemish here may be some patchy fog on each of the next few mornings, especially later in the weekend. We’ll shift to sunshine quickly through each morning.

We’re starting today in the 30s in much of the area, the coldest morning for Houston since December 11th, when we hit 34° officially. Temperatures will warm and top off in the mid- to upper-50s today, mid-60s tomorrow, and near 70 on Sunday. Morning lows will be chilly again tonight, with low-40s. Onshore flow slowly increases a bit on Saturday night and Sunday, so low temperatures Sunday morning will be milder, in the mid- to upper-40s.

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Houston is coming to the end of wet spell, but we’re not quite across the finish line. Generally, 1.5 to 3.0 inches of rain have fallen over the last 24 hours, which is not that much rain but due to sodden soils and dormant vegetation, none of those rains have been absorbed. (Area bayous are fine, with the exception of some minor flooding along Little Cypress Creek). Fortunately the bulk of this mess has moved off to the east, and the rest of it should follow by around noon today. Good riddance!

Thursday

It’s chilly this morning in addition to the rainfall, with low 40s inland to mid-50s near the coast. As the upper-level storm system that produced our wet weather moves east, it will be replaced by high pressure later today that will bring drier air. Clouds probably will be breaking up around the time the sun sets. Highs today won’t move up much from lows this morning, and lows tonight may get into the upper 30s for the city.

Friday

After the cold start, sunny skies will help push temperatures into the upper 50s for most of the city, with light northerly winds. Lows Friday night will be a few degrees warmer than Thursday night, but still fairly cold.

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Houston got a taste of sunshine to start the new year, but now we’ve returned to cloudy weather. Soon, rain will follow, and due to the nature of our saturated soils and lesser ability of dead vegetation to absorb rainfall, a flash flood watch is in effect through noon Thursday. We’re not overly concerned with the possibility of widespread flooding, but certainly the next day or so will be a wet, chilly affair.

Wednesday through midday Thursday

A combination of moisture streaming into the area from the Gulf of Mexico (this is occurring above the surface, because winds near the ground are out of the northeast), as well as a disturbed atmosphere will drive the potential for rain today, tonight, and Thursday morning. While much of the rain will likely be of the light-to-moderate variety, a few embedded heavier showers are possible. Moreover, because the rain could last for hours in some locations, we may eventually see accumulations of up to about 3 inches. Because soils simply cannot handle much (any) of this rain, almost all it will run off into streets and bayous.

Overall, this messy weather should eventually move off to the east by Thursday morning, or early afternoon time frame, as a cold front moves through. Before then, highs will be in the 50s, lows in the 40s, and skies leaden. I know some of you love winter weather like this, so enjoy it while it lasts.

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I hope everyone is enjoying the sunny start to 2019. I’m just jumping in here on New Year’s Day to note that the messy pattern on Wednesday and Thursday—before a front sweeps through, and clears out our weather for a beautiful weekend—is trending wetter.

In short, the front responsible for our clear skies today has essentially stalled offshore, and this will allow moisture to flow back toward the Texas coast at higher levels of the atmosphere. Meanwhile, a slow-moving upper-level low pressure system will approach the region from the west, arriving in time to set up a wet pattern on Wednesday and Thursday. Whereas this looked like a moderate, 1-inch rain storm yesterday, it now appears capable of producing widespread areas of 1 to 3 inches of rainfall, with higher isolated totals.

During summertime, such rainfall amounts would be of little concern. But now, in the middle of winter, with vegetation mostly dead or dormant and saturated soils, rainfall will not be readily absorbed, and will instead pond in yards as well as run into streets and bayous. We don’t anticipate too many problems, but there are some concerns about brief street flooding and area rivers. These waterways are falling from peaks on Sunday, but could rise again fairly quickly. According to Jeff Lindner of the Harris County Flood Control District, there is also concern for watersheds that respond like a river system: Cypress Creek, Little Cypress Creek, Willow Creek, Spring Creek, Cedar Bayou, and the creeks that drain into Addicks and Barker Reservoirs.

The rain potential begins to increase by Wednesday morning, and this mess should finally clear out by Thursday late morning, or afternoon. After that we can expect mostly sunny skies through the weekend—which still looks pretty spectacular for early January.