More rain to come for Houston

I mean, seriously, this is like the rain version of “Groundhog Day.” I wish I had better news for you tonight, but unfortunately, today’s rain was merely Act I for the Houston area. We have some serious concerns going into tomorrow, and I’ll touch on those here in a second.

WHAT FELL?

Rainfall totals were very sporadic across the region, but they hit hardest in the worst possible places: The Woodlands, Spring, and Northern Harris County, places that simply can’t handle much water after last weekend.

Rainfall through 9:45 PM Wednesday evening. (Harris County Flood Control)
Rainfall through 9:45 PM Wednesday evening. (Harris County Flood Control)

This inevitably led to widespread street flooding. That sort of flooding was worse than usual because it fell so fast (3-4″ in an hour in spots), and it overwhelmed drainage systems.

Area-wide view of radar estimated rainfall today. (GRLevel3)
Area-wide view of radar estimated rainfall today. (GRLevel3)

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Flash flood warning issued for northern Houston area

Storms are firing up along a boundary just to the north of Houston this evening, especially over areas from The Woodlands to Conroe. The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for this part of the region until 6:45pm CT. This means flooding may quickly develop as rains continue.

Area of flash flood warning in effect until 6:45pm CT. (National Weather Service)
Area of flash flood warning in effect until 6:45pm CT. (National Weather Service)

 

It appears as though these storms will continue to develop over primarily the northern Houston metro area this evening, north of Interstate 10, before tapering off tonight.

However it seems likely that another, more organized system will move into the Houston region from the west on Thursday morning, bringing considerable rainfall, certainly at least a few inches and more in isolated areas. Although this is far from a certainty, we are going to have to watch closely for more flooding tomorrow.

Posted at 5:20pm CT on Wednesday by Eric Berger

Cold comfort: After a rainy May still no 90° day for Houston

Houston recorded a staggering 24.84 inches of rain in March, April and May at Bush Intercontinental Airport. That three month total for spring ranks second for this period in the city’s history all time—behind only last year with its 26.61 inches.

Clearly this has caused widespread flooding problems, particularly north of Harris County, along Spring and Cypress creeks, as well as to the west, along the entire Brazos River watershed, which is presently experiencing historic flooding. And the misery is not over, with more heavy rain likely from Thursday through Saturday or Sunday.

But the clouds have had one silver lining—temperatures. May ended with an average temperature of 74.5 degrees, which is 2.4 degrees below normal. That’s not among the 10 coldest Mays on record for the city, and we weren’t going to reach that list because the month had only one real cool front, back during the first week when temperatures fell into the 50s for a few nights. Instead we mostly had cooler days because of the clouds and the rains. The average high was 83.1 degrees, and amazingly we still haven’t had a 90-degree day in 2016.

(National Weather Service)
(National Weather Service)

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June’s site sponsor: Meyerland Animal Clinic, P.A.

A new month means a new sponsor for Space City Weather, and I’m pleased to announce that Meyerland Animal Clinic, P.A. will support the site in June.

(Meyerland Animal Clinic, P.A.)
(Meyerland Animal Clinic, P.A.)

 

Thanks to their generous support we can provide all of our weather content for free, and without advertisement, for the entire month of June. The advantage of the sponsorship model is that we are under no pressure to generate web traffic for the sake of web traffic—so there’s no hype, no click bait and no nonsense. All we’ll do is continue to make the best possible forecasts we can make. So if you appreciate that, and have furry friends, please check them out!