Well, a good morning to you all. We are in for a treat to start this week. And the back half of the week doesn’t look terrible either. So in case anyone was worried about the forecast changing over the weekend, we have good news that it really has not changed!
Today through Wednesday
All the sunshine. Seriously, the next three days look magnificent. First, a quick note on the wind, which has been howling periodically overnight. It will begin to settle back during the day today. Expect less frequent wind gusts, though it will stay breezy at times. Besides that, over the next few days, the only real risk for a hiccup will be a few periods of high clouds that sweep through. As of right now, they don’t appear to be too thick, but the best chance for a little cloud cover to interfere in the beautiful weather would be Tuesday morning into early afternoon, and again later Wednesday afternoon.
A few high clouds will skirt by today, but otherwise, it should be near-perfect once the wind eases up. (College of DuPage)
As far as temperatures go, we’ll warm from the 40s or low-50s this morning into the middle 60s this afternoon. Look for tomorrow to start in the 40s and warm into the upper 60s during the afternoon. Wednesday should be close to a repeat of Tuesday, warming from 40s to near 70 in the afternoon. All in all, this is pretty close to perfect.
Good morning! I want to start with a couple housekeeping items today.
Edit: One of our readers has provided a good explanation for the below that confirms the source of Thursday’s smoke was local, not from Oklahoma. See the comments below for his explainer. For the sake of transparency, I’ve left the original post in tact.
First, the smoke yesterday. We got a couple comments and tweets about it. The unfortunate answer is that we really don’t know for sure where it came from. The going theory is that it probably came from some unknown local source. Certainly possible, but I have a sneaky suspicion it could be because of fires and controlled burns in Oklahoma. If you ran a backwards trajectory on the air mass over Houston yesterday back 48 hours (in other words, where was the air over Houston yesterday 48 hours prior?), our air came from the northern Rockies, traveled across Oklahoma and North Texas, and eventually sank to the surface near Houston.
Yesterday afternoon’s air over Texas may have picked up smoke over Oklahoma as it came south and lowered to the surface in Houston, bringing the smoke with it. (NOAA)
The air mass would have been over Oklahoma and northeast Texas on Wednesday afternoon and evening. I believe there were quite a few controlled burns and a few other fires up in Oklahoma or North Texas then that could have ended up making the trip south with our cooler air. Otherwise, the smoke was indeed from somewhere closer to Houston, but no one really knows for sure. Anyway, I found it interesting and thought I’d share.
And if the smoke wasn’t enough to put a damper on your day yesterday, the pollen count probably was. How bad was it yesterday?
Tree pollen, particularly oak pollen is the league leader in irritating your nose. (City of Houston)
Tree pollen often flares up this time of year. For me, it’s usually a battle between oak and cedar in terms of what can drive me away from outdoor activity. Oak is dominating the board right now and likely will continue to do so for the next few weeks. Oak pollen usually eases up in late March or April. The city of Houston has a pretty good pollen and mold count site I recommend for bookmarking. You can also examine historical data too.
On to the forecast.
Today & Saturday
We’ll start out with sun and some clouds today. I expect clouds to gradually thicken up as the day goes on. I wouldn’t be shocked to hear about a few sprinkles or showers southwest of Houston this afternoon. It’ll be warmer and gradually turn more humid today. Look for highs in the lower 70s. A disturbance passing by overnight should touch off at least some scattered showers or a rumble of thunder. The best chance of this would be south of I-10. Look for mid-60s overnight, and total rainfall ranging from nothing to a few tenths of an inch overall.
On Saturday, there will continue to be a few showers or even a thunderstorm or two around in the morning. As of right now, we expect the afternoon to be mostly quiet. A shower or two is possible, but the atmosphere over Houston will likely be capped, meaning showers and storms will have a tough time developing. It will probably still be a mostly cloudy day with a few sunny breaks at times. You should be able to go about most plans with scant interruption tomorrow. Highs on Saturday will peak around or above 80 degrees.
Chilly temperatures have descended across the greater Houston area this morning, with lows generally in the 40s and 50s. This drier air will begin to exit the region as a more moist flow replaces it. This will lead to a general warming trend through Saturday, before the next cold front arrives on Sunday. As discussed on Wednesday, the week of Spring Break still looks pretty fine.
It’s cold in Texas this morning, but not freezing like in some neighboring states. (Weather Bell)
Thursday
The region will see partly sunny skies today, with high temperatures likely in the upper 60s. Some clouds are mixing into our skies, too, and this trend should persist later today as the onshore flow reestablishes itself. Low temperatures tonight will probably be in the 50s for most of Houston, and warmer along the coast.
It’s a cool morning across the Houston region, with temperatures ranging from the mid-40s up north to the upper-50s on Galveston Island and right along the coast. Wednesday night should be even chillier across the region before a warm-up heading into the weekend. We’ll also take a look at the Spring Break forecast for Houston.
Wednesday
Clear, cool, and sunny with a high in the upper 60s. As additional dry and cool air works its way into Houston today, we’ll have a colder night, and I expect low temperatures to fall into the upper 30s for inland areas, and mid-40s in most of the city. Definitely a fireplace night!
Low temperature forecast for Wednesday night/Thursday morning. (Pivotal Weather)
Thursday
Another nice, mostly sunny day with highs in the upper 60s. We can’t rule out a few clouds as the onshore flow likely resumes sometime later in the day. Nighttime temperatures will probably be about 10 degrees warmer than on Wednesday—so cool, but not cold.
