Houston to remain in somewhat unsettled pattern through weekend

This is one of those days that meteorologists dislike. Why? Because we’re going to be wrong. Let me explain.

Tuesday

Atmospheric moisture levels are pretty high, nowhere near record high, but certainly healthy. High pressure hasn’t established itself, so there’s nothing precluding rainfall today. At the same time, there’s no great forcing mechanism in the atmosphere to really drive rain showers. So what does that leave us? Probably about half of the metro area will see some rain. For most areas, this will probably be a quick shower. However, conditions are such that a few very strong, slow-moving thunderstorms may form, so some small areas could see rain bullseyes of 3 inches or so.

What a forecast, eh? You’re either going to get no rain, or three inches, or something in between.

And that’s before the temperatures. For areas that see mostly sunny skies, highs probably will reach the mid-90s. Areas that see rain—probably around 90 degrees. See our dilemma?

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Welcome to the new Space City Weather

You may have noticed that we’ve had some server issues over the last six months. The thing is, we became really popular, really quickly. And that’s a good thing—just not when you’re trying to keep the site running and bad weather hits and the site dies.

New server, same logo.

Fortunately, I think we’ve solved the issues. We’ve moved the site to a new server. We have lots of memory, cache, storage, and all kinds of other resources I think we’re going to need. I think.

If you subscribed by e-mail, we haven’t migrated users over to the new server yet. I’m hoping to address this in the next 24 to 48 hours. We have a plan. I think it will work. If it doesn’t work, or if you want to make sure you don’t miss anything, you can subscribe now in the “Subscribe via e-mail” box to the right of this post.

Thank you to all of our readers for your patience and forbearance. If it’s been frustrating for you, believe me, it’s been ten-fold for us.

Houston to remain in rainy pattern for first half of this week

The absence of high pressure, summer-like moisture levels, and some atmospheric instability due to an upper-atmosphere disturbance led to some impressive thunderstorms on Sunday evening—what a lightning show—with the northern half of the Houston area generally receiving 1 to 4 inches of rainfall. I don’t think accumulations will be quite so high today, but we’re going to remain in this wetter-than-normal pattern into the middle of this week.

(National Weather Service)

Today

The atmosphere remains moist, and we’re already seeing some showers and thunderstorms develop over Montgomery County. Based upon these trends, rain is likely north of Interstate 10 this morning, and showers should move closer to the coast this afternoon. For the most part we’re looking at a few tenths of an inch of rainfall, but as these storms are slow-moving, some areas could pick up 1 to 2 inches over time. Highs should remain around 90 degrees. As was the case on Sunday evening, storms may well continue late into the evening.

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Fleeting showers ease Houston’s sizzle

Houston is off to its tenth hottest start to a July on record (matching July 1-6, 1931 for #10), with an average temperature of 85.9° so far this month. It hasn’t been extreme heat by our standards, but it’s been steadily hot and humid. A bunch of folks saw some cooling showers on Thursday, and as we kick off the weekend, a few more will see some relief as well. But don’t count on substantial, prolonged relief anytime soon. Summer is in control. Let’s walk through it.

Today & Saturday

Fairly similar weather is expected both for today and tomorrow. Expect a few showers near the coast in the morning (you can see those on radar this morning), expanding and spreading inland during the afternoon.

Radar this morning shows a few downpours near the coast. Expect these to expand and move inland as the day wears on. (GR Level 3)

 

While coverage will likely not be widespread, I do think a good chunk of the area will see at least a shower. A few others will see downpours. And a few others still will just have to stare longingly at dark clouds in the distance, hearing the thunder of relief that has passed them by. Alas, Houston in the peak of summer can be cruel in that way.

Rainfall totals will obviously vary, with some places seeing squat, while others under a more persistent downpour could see one or two inches of rain. Shower coverage should be slightly greater on Friday than Saturday.

Expect high temps today and Saturday to be perhaps a touch cooler than they have been running thanks to better coverage of showers than we’ve seen lately. Some will see low-90s. If you aren’t fortunate enough to see a shower, you’ll probably do mid-90s.

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