Good Sunday morning. As of 7:15am CT a cold front is moving through the northern parts of the Houston metro area, and should push through the city by 9am and off the coast by noon.
Residents can expect some rain showers and a few strong thunderstorms with the front’s passage, but the main line is storms is moving fairly rapidly to the south-southeast, so the strongest storms won’t last too long. Light rain is possible for an hour or two after the front’s passage later this morning before we dry out this afternoon.
High resolution modeling indicates storms should be moving away from Houston by noon Sunday. (Weather Bell)
After the storms move through northerly winds will persist through the afternoon hours as skies clear out. We can expect gusts in the 20s through the early evening hours as high temperatures perhaps hang around the upper 70s. Temperatures will cool fairly quickly this evening.
Most of the rest of the week looks clear, cool, and spectacular. We’ll have our full forecast on Monday morning.
Good morning. Thanks to Eric for covering me the last few Fridays as I took some time to step away from weather forecasts and explore Utah, which is an absolutely incredible place. And there was snow, for real! Anyway, it’s good to be back in Houston, and it would be better if the Astros were to win tonight. Let’s do some weather, as it is an active, changeable period the next several days.
Today
An area of heavy rainfall formed overnight southeast of Houston dumping nearly 7″ of rain (including 4.5″ in an hour) near Friendswood along Clear Creek.
Localized but extremely heavy rainfall has occurred this morning southeast of Houston. (Harris County Flood Control)
The heaviest rain has shifted north, but Clear Creek may still rise a bit close to bankfull in spots but not out of banks. Street flooding is likely to continue a bit longer this morning in this area.
Radar as of 6:20 AM shows the rain weakening a bit and lifting further north. (GRLevel3)
So what does the rest of today bring? We’ll probably see continued periods of rain and thunderstorms east of Houston south to near Galveston. Rain will come in spurts, but it could be heavy at times. I think the heaviest will be east of where the serious rain was earlier this morning, and the rain should be intermittent enough in places like Friendswood, Dickinson, and League City to not cause any further serious problems. That said, there may be some pockets of street flooding issues in parts of Chambers or Liberty Counties today, but they’ll probably be isolated. Elsewhere, keep an umbrella at the ready. Expect isolated to scattered showers and storms in the area, especially through early afternoon.
Temperatures will be held back a bit with clouds, but since we’re starting much warmer than yesterday, we should crack the lower 80s this afternoon (a few places west of the city may do middle 80s). We may see a few showers around this evening or overnight, but far less coverage and intensity than this morning. Most of us will stay dry tonight.
Now that “Fall Day” has ushered in autumn, and we hopefully won’t see 90 degrees again until 2018, the time has come to look ahead to winter. Specifically, we want to look at the impact a potential La Niña could have on Texas. The Climate Prediction Center recently issued a La Niña watch, giving the Northern Hemisphere a 55 to 65 percent chance of experiencing cooler than average waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Let’s take a step back however, and discuss what La Niña is, and how it could influence our weather in the coming months.
La Niña (and El Niño)
El Niño and La Niña are the warming and cooling phases of water in the eastern Pacific Ocean, off the coast of equatorial South America. El Niño occurs when the water is warmer than usual, La Niña when the water is cooler than usual. The changes aren’t radical—just 0.5-4°C either way. However, that type of change, over such a wide swath of ocean, has a massive impact on the global climate. It’s a classic example of the butterfly effect. A seemingly small change in another part of the world results in big impacts everywhere else.
As of the last update, surface ocean temperatures off the coast of Peru are between 0.5°C and 3°C below normal. The longer this pattern persists, the more likely La Niña will impact the globe.
The Houston region will enjoy one more sunny day before a three-day period in which we should see rain return to Houston, including the possibility of some intermittent thunderstorms before a cold front clears us out for next week.
Thursday
A pleasant, partly sunny day with highs in the mid-80s. We can’t rule out some scattered showers to the west and southwest of Houston, but I expect most all of the region to remain dry. After several cool nights, lows Thursday night probably won’t reach below 70 for most of the metro area.
Rain accumulation forecast for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. (NOAA/Weather Bell)
Friday
The combination of rising moisture levels and lower pressure in the upper level atmosphere will create favorable conditions for rainfall on Friday. We’re certainly not looking at anything extreme, as I think most of the region will see between 0.25 and 1 inch of rainfall on Friday. However, some of the showers could briefly pulse up to some heavy rainfall, so if you’re caught out in one of these take care. Clouds should limit highs to the low 80s.
