Slightest of storm chances still taunting Houston Sunday

The month of May will go into the books as the third hottest May on record back to 1889 in Houston. Our average temperature was 79.8 degrees, putting us in between 2010 and 2003.  The warmest May on record for Houston was 1996 when we had an average of 81.4 degrees. May 2018 also finished with 20 days of 90 degrees or hotter, a new record for number of 90 degree days for the month.

We have much more heat in store for the days ahead. But we do have a nagging storm chance this weekend, just low enough to be disappointing but just high enough to have to mention. The details…

Today & Saturday

Look for very similar conditions both today and tomorrow: Sun, clouds, and hot. There will probably be no showers in the area either day. Expect temperatures to hit the middle 90s again today and the mid to perhaps upper 90s tomorrow.

Sunday & Monday

I’m actually going to lump Sunday and Monday together today. There have been a couple minor changes to the forecast, mostly in terms of timing the rain chances. A weak boundary (call it a “front” if you’d like) will drop south from northeast Texas on Sunday. It sort of drags its feet as it approaches Houston, so that will allow rain chances to appear both Sunday and Monday. I wouldn’t get too excited, as the ingredients for storminess still look rather sub-par. But, nevertheless, we’ll hold on to some hope for some cooling rains. If we were assigning odds for who could see rain, those north of I-10 may stand the best chance on Sunday and Monday.

The GFS model shows just the slightest of rain chances on Sunday afternoon across southeast Texas. (Pivotal Weather)

Outside the rain chances, it will be partly to mostly sunny and continued hot. I expect mid to upper 90s Sunday and similar temperatures on Monday, but perhaps a degree or two cooler.

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Sunday’s chance of rain isn’t good, but it’s all we’ve got

The heat will continue as high pressure remains more or less in control of Houston’s weather. Why? High pressure occurs when air above sinks downward—this increasing the pressure of the atmosphere at the surface. This descending air generally inhibits the formation of clouds, and very often prevents moist air at the surface from rising, and returning as precipitation. So hot, and sunny.

High pressure (deeper reds) will dominate our weather through Saturday. (Weather Bell)

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday

And this is just what we’re going to get for awhile—hot and mostly sunny, with highs in the mid-90s for the most part. Warm nights in the mid- to upper-70s. Not much more to say as high pressure dominates our weather.

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Houston likely to record its third warmest May this month

The month of May is about to draw to a close, and it has been a warm one for Houston. Through Tuesday, the average temperature for the month at the city’s official weather station, Bush Intercontinental Airport, is 79.6 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 3.0 degrees above normal. (We’ve had just two days this month with below normal temperatures). It appears as though this May will end up as the third warmest May on record in Houston, ranking behind only 1996 and 2010. That may or may not be significant—the summer of 1996 did not end up being abnormally warm, but 2010 certainly did.

Wednesday and Thursday

Our July-in-May weather will continue to wrap up the month, with high pressure building over the region and keeping daytime highs in the low- to mid-90s. Some scattered afternoon clouds may help with temperatures just a wee bit, but it’s still going to be extremely warm out there so please take precautions.

NDFD high temperature forecast for Friday. (Weather Bell)

Friday and Saturday

As high pressure dominates, the story across Texas will be heat. The National Weather Service gridded forecasts are absolutely brutal on Friday, with highs of up to 110 degrees in some parts of the state. This is deep summer weather for Texas to start the month of June—and typically summer doesn’t peak until late July or August.

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Hurricane season has come: Here are some questions and answers

Hurricane season officially begins later this week, but as we’ve seen with Subtropical Storm Alberto, Mother Nature doesn’t care overly much about arbitrary dates. Nevertheless, it is the time of year to begin thinking about the tropics, and so we’re going to help you get ready with some questions and answers.

Why does hurricane season occur now?

The easy answer is “warmer water,” and it is true that sea surface temperatures above 80 degrees Fahrenheit are generally needed for tropical storms to form, and strengthen into hurricanes. However, seas in the tropics are generally warmest in October, when hurricane season often begins to wind down. There is another factor, wind shear, that is critical. When winds are rough, and blowing as cross directions at different altitudes, storms simply cannot form. Typically, tropical storms will thrive only when wind shear values near the center are below 20 knots. The following graphic, from FEMA’s Michael Lowry, shows why the hurricane season lasts from June through November, but typically peaks during early September.

(Michael Lowry/FEMA)

Help! I’ve seen a really scary forecast on Facebook

Already this season we’ve seen some hyperbolic forecasts on Facebook. In March, a post forecasting doom and gloom for the 2018 Atlantic season went viral, and more recently a post showing a major hurricane hitting Texas in June got passed around. Such “social mediarology” plays on the fears of people, and therefore tends to get shared widely. If you’ll promise to not fall for these kinds of fear-mongering posts, we’ll make a pledge to you: If we believe there is a credible threat to Houston, we will report that immediately. And if we haven’t written about it, the post you’ve seen on Facebook is probably garbage.

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