A special announcement about our 2018 site sponsor

After 2017 in Houston, which featured everything from the costliest hurricane to ever strike the United States to a rare December snow, we can hardly guess what the near year will bring. (Certainly, we can be relatively confident in heat and humidity). Whatever this way comes, be it snow, rain, or intense heat, we’d like you to know that Space City Weather will be here every step of the way.

And that is why I am so thrilled to announce today that our sponsor during last year’s hurricane season, Reliant, has stepped forward to support the site for all of 2018. The company, and its president Elizabeth Killinger, believe strongly in the value we bring to to the Houston community, and they wanted to support our efforts. That means two important things for readers of Space City Weather.

One, we will have no outside advertising on the site. None. No auto-play videos. No pop-ups. Just a clean interface. This should make for lightning fast load times. Perhaps most importantly, it means we do not have to generate clicks for the sake of clicks. We don’t need to clickbait you because the value of our site isn’t determined by traffic. So if there’s not much to say about a 95-degree day in August, we won’t waste your time (or ours) by saying much.

Two, neither Matt nor I has much of a background in business or marketing. We’re scientists. We’re meteorologists. We’re writers. We just want to inform, entertain, and help you make decisions about weather and your lives. To that extent, having Reliant sponsor the site for all of this year means we can focus on weather, and pay with bills, with a minimum of distraction.

Finally, let me just say that I’m personally pleased that Reliant is back. Their very name is part of the ethos of this site. We aspire to provide a source of reliable information about weather in the greater Houston area. They’re a reliable provider of electricity and home services to the same market. It’s a great match for the new year.

This is the worst of this Arctic spell for Houston—we warm now

Houston saw some scattered light snow and sleet on Tuesday evening, but drier air at low levels of the atmosphere prevented more widespread coverage. After this system moved out of the area, skies began to clear from west to east across the region after midnight and this allowed for very cold temperatures to settle into southeast Texas. As of 6:30am CT, lows range from about 20 degrees in College Station, to 25 in the city of Houston, to 30 degrees in Galveston. Up north, this is nothing. But for Houston, this is very cold—with many sites tying or breaking record low temperatures for January 3. If you’re tired of this, there’s good news. We’ve seen the worst of it now.

When you look at forecast low temperatures for Wednesday morning, suddenly the mid-20s doesn’t seem all that bad. (Pivotal Weather)

Wednesday through Friday

One big thing happens today: full sunshine returns to Houston. It’s been awhile. But the next three days should see nearly continuous sunshine during the daytime hours. This will allow for a sloooow warming trend, from highs today in the low 40s to the low 50s by Friday. Overnight lows, too, should climb from around 30 degrees Wednesday night to about 40 degrees by Friday night.

See full post

Brief burst of snow or sleet this evening for Houston

This has been a rocking winter for H-town if you like snow or sleet. We had some surprise sleet across much of the area this morning, and if what we’re seeing is correct, we’ll be talking about some more surprise sleet or even snow this evening.

As of 4:15 PM Tuesday, some light snow is showing up on radar between Houston and Austin. Though that is likely not yet reaching the ground, as it slides east and organizes a bit more, we could see that change.

Radar as of 4:15 shows light snow falling (though likely not reaching the ground just yet) between Houston and Austin. (Radarscope)

All of this is being driven by a pretty potent little disturbance a few thousand feet up that will help deliver snow or sleet to Florida and Georgia tomorrow and eventually New England on Thursday. That slides into Houston after 9-10 PM or so tonight.

I’ve been watching the HRRR model literally all day today, and with each run it has boosted or maintained its depiction of what happens over Houston as the disturbance exits tonight. The HRRR is a really short-term weather model that we use in the 0-18 hour timeframe for forecasting. By no means is it perfect, but it’s been tough to ignore the trend it has shown today, somewhat corroborated by some other modeling this afternoon.

Here’s a forecasted radar depiction from the HRRR model this evening at 10 PM.

The HRRR model indicates some snowflakes or a mix of snow and sleet (ice pellets) this evening across Houston, especially east of I-45. (Weather Bell)

This shows a quick burst of snow or mixed snow/sleet as it moves through. The prime time for this to occur would be 7 PM-1 AM. After that, it will move offshore and skies will clear out allowing temperatures to plummet.

So what to expect? 

  • A brief (1-4 hour) burst of snow or sleet this evening is possible.
  • Snow or sleet could actually come down at a healthy clip for a short time in a few places.
  • Any accumulations would be minor and probably not cause severe problems for travel, but (there’s always a but) just keep in mind that this may occur tonight if you have to be on the roads after, say, 8 PM and drive with extra care just to be safe.
  • With cold temperatures in place and several days of cold built up, if it were to snow a little heavier than expected, it could lead to a dusting on roads (similar to what we saw southeast of Houston this morning from the sleet).
  • Any snow or sleet ends from northwest to southeast from 11 PM to 2 AM, with clearing overnight, followed by bitter cold overnight and Wednesday morning low temps in the Houston metro area. A hard freeze is likely over most of the metro area tonight.

Please share any of your observations tonight with us here, Facebook, or via Eric or Matt’s Twitter feeds!

Early look at the Houston Marathon forecast: Cold, probably

Hello fellow marathon runners and volunteers. In 12 days, it will be all over but the recovery. And now that the big training runs are over, all that we can do is trust our preparation, and hope for good—cold—weather on the big day. To that end, for the rest of this week, I’ll be providing afternoon updates on what we can expect for Sunday, Jan. 14th.

Of course any weather forecast beyond about seven days out is going to have a lot of uncertainty, and anything beyond 10 days is even more problematic. But that does not mean such forecasts have zero value. The best way to look at weather this far out is to study the ensemble forecasts of the main global models. These are the 50 or so lower resolution runs of a given model, with slightly different initial conditions. By looking at the spread in output from these models, we can gauge the probability of cold, normal, or warm weather for 12 days from now. Looking at the 12z runs of the European and North American models, here’s what I have for you.

Starting with the European model I have broken down the possibilities for start line temperatures into four different categories:

Warm: 3 degrees F or more warmer than normal

Normal: +3 to -3 degrees within normal (average high is 65, low is 47 degrees)

Cold: -3 to -10 degrees below normal

Very cold: -10 degrees or more below normal

In looking at each individual ensemble member of the European model, here are the Houston temperature anomaly outputs sorted by category:

Warm: 5

Normal: 4

Cold: 33

Very cold: 8

Too obtain probabilities, just multiply those numbers by two. So, roughly, according to the European model this afternoon, there is a 20 percent chance of warm or near-normal weather for the marathon, and an 80 percent chance of cold or very cold weather.

Looking at the GFS model, the  we can see the mean of the ensemble members for January 14th is about 2 Celsius degrees (4 degrees Fahrenheit) below normal. But this model isn’t as cold as the European model.

Average temperature anomaly produced by the GFS ensemble members. (Weather Bell)

This is a much better forecast for the 2018 run than what we saw in 2017 (warm and very humid), but it is far from locked in. There are also some concerns.

The models are suggesting that some kind of fairly strong cold front moves through the region toward the end of next week, and this could bring with it some decent precipitation. If that front is late, we could still be warm for the marathon. Or the front could drag through on a Friday or Saturday, leaving behind some cold rain for the marathon itself. That, obviously, wouldn’t be ideal either. All that said, I’d still rather be looking at probable cold weather more than just about anything.

More tomorrow.