As is often the case in August, in Houston, we’re going to remain more or less under the influence of high pressure for the next several days. Who knows, maybe for most of the rest of the month.

If there’s anything positive to be taken away from this it’s that this dome of high pressure isn’t so dominant as to eliminate all possibility of rain, nor push temperatures above 100 degrees, and afternoon heat levels to dangerous levels. We’ve been able to remain just cool enough that the National Weather Service hasn’t had to issue heat advisories for the Houston metro area. At least not yet.

But these are small comforts, and it’s still August. Therefore rain is going to be hard to come by during the next week, even though some moisture will return to the area on Friday. Here’s a look at the NOAA rainfall accumulation forecast for now through next Wednesday evening.

 

What you’ll notice about the forecast map above is that for most of Texas the only real rain chances are along the coast, and that’s probably the pattern we’re going to see, more or less, over the next week. Warm nights with lows only in the upper 70s, hot days with highs in the upper 90s, and sea breeze-driven showers during the warmest, afternoon hours, mostly along the coast.

This is pretty much textbook weather for August—a month to be survived on the way to more temperate fall weather in late September and beyond.

Posted Thursday at 6:30am CT by Eric

August is almost always Houston’s hottest month. It has a normal high temperature of 94.5 degrees, compared to 93.7 degrees for July, and 91.4 degrees for June. And typically, the region experiences its warmest day of the year this week, or next, according to data from the National Weather Service.

 

Looking across the country there’s an incredible spread of “warmest” dates, from early June (Southwestern United States) all the way to the end of September (West coast). But for most of Texas they come during the month of August. What’s interesting is that this is when our days are starting to get shorter.

Houston had its longest day in 2016 back on June 20, the summer solstice. The official sunrise was 6:21am that day, and sunset occurred at 8:25pm, making for nearly a 14 hour, 4 minute day. Next week, when Houston normally receives its “warmest day” of the year, there will be about 1 hour of sunlight less. (For example, on August 15, sunrise is at 6:50am, and sunset at 8:02pm).

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