The winter solstice began early this morning, as the Sun reached its lowest point in the sky. Paradoxically, instead of seeing cooler weather over the next week or 10 days, Houston will instead warm back up over the Christmas Holiday, and perhaps most of the following week.

For the northern hemisphere today is the “shortest” day of the year, in terms of daylight. With a sunrise at 7:12am CT and sunset at 5:26pm, there is just 10 hours and 14 minutes of daylight. (At mid-summer the day is 14 hours, 3 minutes long). Here’s how that compares with the rest of the northern hemisphere on the winter solstice.

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Good morning. The development of some clouds overnight helped keep the majority of the Houston metro region just above freezing temperatures this morning. The winds have finally died down, too, so wind chills are much less of a factor. Alas we’re going to return to very warm conditions by Christmas weekend.

Today

With a northeasterly wind we’re not exactly going to warm up all that much today—highs should only get into the low- to mid-50s under mostly sunny skies. Temperatures tonight will fall back into the mid-40s for most of the region.

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For most areas of Houston the first freeze of the season arrived this morning, including a mark of 30 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport. This official “first freeze” of the season comes nearly nearly three weeks late for the city’s official weather station.

The following map shows temperatures across the region as of 7am CT, which range from the low 20s near College Station to upper 30s immediately along the coast. With winds still in the 10 to 15 mph range this morning, wind chill temperatures across most of Houston are in the teens to low 20s—very cold.

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