In brief: Today’s post discusses our current cool front, and even stronger front next week, and when we might finally see some rain. We also discuss the recent controversy over “weather control” in regard to hurricanes Helene and Milton. Finally, there’s a link to vote for us as “Houstonians of the year.”

A few words about weather control

Before we get into the forecast—and there is a treat in the outlook for next week, with a nice front that should finally put the cool in cool front—I feel compelled to address the rise of misinformation spreading online about weather control. This problem has become especially acute in light of the terrible inland flooding from Hurricane Helene last month, and the impending landfall of what surely will be a highly catastrophic Hurricane Milton.

If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, Wired has a good rundown on some of these conspiracy theories. Essentially the claim is that, for political reasons, the US government is manipulating the weather to harm its political opponents. I want to be absolutely clear about this: Space City Weather is apolitical. We never talk politics because, frankly, no one cares what our politics are. The weather certainly doesn’t care. The sole point of this post is to address the question of whether weather control is possible, and if it is happening.

It is true that people have been trying to control the weather for a long time, for various reasons. The most prominent form of weather control is cloud seeding, in which aircraft introduce silver iodide into clouds to act as nuclei, and serve as a basis for condensation. This can lead to rain or snow. However, the best available evidence suggests the impact of cloud seeding is limited, perhaps increasing precipitation by 10 percent or so in optimal conditions.

Now comes the important part: There was no cloud seeding during Hurricane Helene, which produced extreme flooding well inland. None. Why would there be? It is in no one’s interest to increase the precipitation from a tropical system. Yes, there are government planes flying into storms. But those are NOAA hurricane hunters, gathering data about the storm to better inform you, and protect those in harm’s way. That is your government, working for you.

And what if they were cloud seeding? Because hurricanes are so large, any attempt to implement cloud seeding would be negligible. As for trying to modify where a tropical cyclone will go, there is no conceivable mechanism to do that. When we consider the steering currents that guide storms, we are talking about atmospheric forces that span continents, with energies that far surpass what humans can generate. If you tried to take our most powerful nuclear weapons and drop them in a hurricane to disrupt their movement, all you would do is spread harmful radiation.

Some people have questioned the movement of Milton, from west to east, across the Gulf of Mexico. That certainly looks strange, doesn’t it? Well, sure. But weather does strange things all the time. The movement of a hurricane from west to east across the Gulf of Mexico is not unprecedented, and in this case the meteorological reasons for Milton’s movement are well understood. The track of Milton was predicted many days in advance by weather models from organizations around the world. Are they all in on the game? Let’s be real. There is nothing artificial about the storm’s track.

In our comments yesterday, some readers asked about “chemtrails” or the “High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program” being used to modify or influence the weather. The bottom line is that no, this is not happening, and if someone nefarious wanted to use them to influence our weather, these kinds of interventions would be ineffective.

Here’s the bottom line. There are plenty of places on the internet where one find this sort of conspiracy-fueled nonsense. You can find “videos” to support almost anything, or “do your own research” and come to whatever conclusions you like. But Space City Weather is a website driven by evidence, and the best available science. If your intent is to weaponize misinformation about the weather, you’re not welcome here. All you are doing is making a miserable experience for people affected by hurricanes worse.

We have no agenda here but to try and put out the most accurate forecasts possible. That is the sole reason we show up every day. If Matt and I saw the weather behaving in an artificial way, we would be shouting from the rooftops. But it’s not. Helene and Milton are powerful hurricanes doing very bad things. A busy and destructive hurricane season was forecast this past spring, partly because the Atlantic Ocean is so very warm due to a warming climate. Unfortunately, that’s what we’re seeing play out.

Wednesday

Houston’s low temperature has fallen below 60 degrees this morning for the first time since April 23, which is 169 days ago. It’s been a long time since it has felt ‘crisp’ outside, but it does feel that way across much of the region this morning. With dewpoints in the 40s, the air feels mighty fine. This is our region’s coldest morning of the week, and probably our driest day in terms of humidity, but we’re not going back to sultry weather any time soon. Highs today will reach the upper 80s, with light northerly winds and sunny skies. Lows tonight will drop into the lower 60s for most of Houston, with outlying areas probably reaching the upper 50s again.

Thursday and Friday

Sunshine prevails, with fairly dry air and high temperatures of around 90 degrees. Lows will drop into the mid-60s in Houston, with cooler conditions for outlying areas.

Saturday and Sunday

The sunshine party continues, with more days with highs of around 90 degrees. Rain chances are zero. Dewpoints will be creeping up, but the air will still feel less humid than Houston typically feels in late summer. Nights will be a bit warmer, in the upper 60s for most.

Next week

Monday looks to be fairly hot, with high temperatures probably peaking in the lower 90s. I think there’s a chance—don’t hold me to this, but I do think it is a distinct possibility—that Monday or Tuesday will be our final 90-degree day of this calendar year. That’s because a stronger cool front is in the cards for Tuesday or Tuesday night, and this could knock high temperatures down into the 70s by Wednesday. Most of the region could see some nights in the 50s, as well, so hello fall. Rain chances look low with the front, but there may be some better odds toward the end of next week. We’ll see.

Vote for us!

Houstonia magazine is in process of selecting their “Houstonian of the year,” and Matt and I have been nominated among some impressive finalists. The winner is being decided by an online vote, and if you care to support us that would be awesome. Thanks!

In brief: Today’s update assesses the drier air in Houston’s forecast in the days ahead, our lack of rain, and when we will see yet another front. I also share some reflections on Hurricane Milton, which almost certainly will become a historic storm upon its landfall in a day and a half.

Tuesday

Winds are increasing from the north-northeast this morning, and we’ll see some gusts up to 20 mph this afternoon. This represents the main push of drier air into our region, and dewpoints will bottom out in the 40s later today. This will allow high temperatures to reach the upper 80s to 90 degrees this afternoon, but the drier air will also cool off more quickly this evening. Expect lows in the lower-60s for much of Houston tonight, with upper 50s possible for areas further inland, while the coast remains a little warmer. Skies will be sunny.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

It will start to feel like Groundhog Day as the forecast more or less repeats itself: Highs near 90 degrees, lows in the 60s, sunny skies. Dewpoints will start to slowly recover, but the air will continue to feel notably drier. Rain chances are zero-point-zero.

Saturday and Sunday

Expect more sunshine, with highs around 90 degrees and low temperatures in the upper 60s. Dewpoints will rise a little more, but humidity levels should still feel considerably lower than is customary in Houston. If you have outdoor plans, feel confident in them.

Next week

The pattern continues into next week, with perhaps a stronger front arriving around Tuesday or so. This one should drive daytime temperatures down toward 80 degrees, and nights possibly into the 50s. What it may not bring, unfortunately, is anything meaningful in the way of rain chances. I hope I’m wrong about that because we could really use some.

A few thoughts on Hurricane Milton

While there have been some fluctuations in the intensity of Hurricane Milton, it is a powerful Category 4 hurricane and remains on course to strike the west coast of Florida near Tampa on Wednesday night as a major hurricane. We have full and ongoing coverage on The Eyewall, but I just wanted to say a few words about how truly terrible such storms are.

As someone who lives relatively close to the coast, Milton reminds me most of Hurricane Rita, which blew up into a Category 5 hurricane in the central Gulf of Mexico 19 years ago. At about 72 hours before landfall, it appeared as though Rita would directly strike Galveston Island, and decimate the Houston area. As a homeowner and Houston resident, I felt truly awful—despairing, pit-in-the-stomach type of awful—as I thought about the consequences of such a storm for our region. Rita, of course, sparked the most deadly hurricane evacuation of all time before ultimately turning away from Houston toward southeastern Louisiana. Our forecast modeling was much more rudimentary at the time.

Hurricanes have impacts in three distinct waves, all of which are harrowing in every sense of the word. There is the immediacy of the storm: the violent winds and rains, the damage to homes and threat of loss of life. In the days following the storm there is the loss of power, the need for water, food, gasoline, and other essentials of modern life, and the slow process of getting help and picking up the pieces. And then there are the long-term changes: such as dramatically higher insurance rates, and a fundamentally changed and sometimes hollowed-out community.

Milton has the potential to bring all of that, and more, to the populous Tampa region with its 3 million people. There is still time for the storm to turn a bit. A track further south, even 50 miles into a less densely populated area, would make a huge difference. But time is running out for that.

In brief: The greater Houston region faces one more very warm day before drier and moderately cooler air arrives tonight and on Tuesday. And then, the forecast remains one of persistence with sunny, warm days, cooler nights, and for Houston, pleasantly dry air for as far as the eye can see.

No rain

Our average high temperature so far this month has run above 93 degrees, which may be normal for late August, but is decidedly not for early October. This late summer pattern definitely needs to break. Fortunately, we’ll see some cooler and drier air to help with that in the coming days, but what we’re not going to see much of is rainfall.

As expected, showers this past weekend remained mostly offshore. Our next chance of rain, meager though it may be, does not come for another 10 days or so. Even clouds will be scarce this week, and into the weekend, as somewhat drier air prevails for awhile. In other words, expect sunny days and mostly clear nights for the foreseeable future.

Monday

We’re going to see one more day of temperatures in the low 90s across the metro area today, ahead of the arrival of a front that pushes in from the northeast. This will be what is sometimes called a “backdoor” front as the main thrust of the colder and drier air goes to our east, but a finger or whirl of cooler and drier air is spun out, and southward into Houston. Already, dewpoints will be in the 60s today, so while the air will feel warm, it also won’t feel Houston humid. Winds today will be fairly light, from the northeast. Low temperatures tonight will drop down to around 70 degrees.

Tuesday

Even drier air will arrive on Tuesday morning, pushing dewpoints down further. As you probably now, drier air heats up more efficiently than humid air, so because this is not a strong push of colder air from the north we’ll still see warm days this week. Especially with the sunshine. As a result, Tuesday will see highs in the upper 80s, with overnight lows dropping into the lower 60s for much of the city away from the coast. Areas further inland will see the upper 50s on Wednesday morning.

Wednesday through Friday

More of the same. We’ll see sunny and warm days, in the upper 80s. Nights will be pleasant, in the low- to mid-60s in Houston, with cooler conditions outside of the city. With lower dewpoints the air won’t feel particularly humid. For early October, this is pretty nice weather.

Saturday and Sunday

The outlook for the weekend really doesn’t change much: sunny skies with highs in the upper 80s to possibly 90 degrees, with cool-ish nights in the mid-60s. If you have outdoor plans for this coming weekend, proceed with confidence in the weather.

Next week

Sunny skies with highs around 90 degrees will probably continue into the middle of next week, when perhaps a bit stronger front arrives. The details on this one are fuzzy, naturally, but it has the potential to drive nighttime temperatures in the 50s and, if we’re lucky, bring some rain chances with it. We shall see.

Tropics

There remain zero concerns to Texas. We are now firmly in the offseason for hurricane activity. However Milton became a major hurricane this morning in the southern Gulf of Mexico, and it poses a very significant threat to Florida on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. The Tampa Bay region of the state has not been directly hit by a major hurricane in more than a century, but that could well change this week. We have continuing coverage on The Eyewall.

In brief: Tropical Storm Milton formed in the Gulf of Mexico this afternoon. Normally, a tropical system in this part of the Gulf would be of serious concern to Texas, but since we’re now in October, the overall steering pattern generally pushes tropical systems away from our state. We’re sharing this post from The Eyewall because we’ve had several questions about Milton, and know many readers have family and friends in Florida.

At 5 pm ET on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center upgraded a tropical depression in the extreme southwestern Gulf of Mexico into Tropical Storm Milton. The center of the storm is nearly stationary this evening, but it should start to move slowly to the east over the next day or so before accelerating. Although it is unusual for a tropical system this far west in the Gulf of Mexico to move toward Florida, that’s exactly what we expect to happen over the next four days in response to blocking in the mid- and upper-levels of the atmosphere.

Although we remain about four days—give or take—from a landfall along the west coast of Florida, it is important for residents of the state to take Milton very seriously. We realize that some areas of the state remain dazed by Hurricane Helene, but this is a similarly threatening storm. Although we don’t have full confidence in precisely where the storm will track, it does seem very possible that it will directly impact the greater Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area, which has a population in excess of 3 million people.

Please remember that the forecast can and will change in the coming days. However, we have seen a fair amount of tightening in the model solutions over the last 24 hours, and increasingly they are pointing to a powerful hurricane approaching the western Florida coast, possibly near or north of Tampa Bay, by around Wednesday of next week. This post will discuss our preliminary assessment of some of the impacts from this storm.

Track and intensity

There remains a broad cone of uncertainty in regard to where Milton will go, but we can expect this to narrow somewhat during the next day or so. After Milton wobbles around the southwestern Gulf of Mexico for the next day or so, it will get picked up by a front moving down into the northern Gulf of Mexico. This will help steer the storm the east, and then the northeast over the next few days.

Most of our best modeling guidance, including hurricane specific models such as the HWRF and HAFS, brings the storm to the western coast of Florida, near the Tampa Bay region, very late on Tuesday night or Wednesday. Now that a fairly well defined center of circulation has formed, I expect modeling agreement to increase over the next day or so.

In terms of intensity, there is a broad range of outcomes. The National Hurricane Center predicts a major, Category 3 hurricane at landfall on Wednesday. However, an even more powerful storm is possible given that the Gulf of Mexico is very warm, with deep oceanic heat content, and wind shear levels unlikely to disrupt Milton’s organization. Unfortunately, this is a setup for the development of a large and powerful hurricane.

Winds

Milton’s track will determine where the storms strongest winds occur; they will be along the path of the center and generally just to its right. The majority of our guidance continues to point to a hurricane somewhere between Category 2 and Category 4 intensity, which means that there is the potential for a large stretch of the Florida peninsula to experience hurricane-force winds. This level of winds will cause significant damage and likely lead to power outages.

Storm surge

With four days to develop, Milton is ultimately going to push a large and powerful storm surge toward Florida. This storm will almost certainly impact areas south of where Hurricane Helene struck in September, but at this point anywhere from the coastal bend of Florida, south to the Tampa Bay area, and further south to Fort Myers, is at risk. It is too early to talk about absolute risks, but for wherever Milton makes landfall, the storm is likely to bring a historically damaging storm surge. These impacts will be most pronounced just to the right of where the hurricane makes landfall—which again, is a location that we cannot say with any certainty yet.

Inland rainfall

Heavy rainfall is another threat from Milton. Although the storm should be moving at a fairly good clip once it reaches Florida by the middle of this week, Milton could nonetheless drench a swath of the state, from west to east as it crosses the state. Whether this occurs in the central part of the state, such as the vicinity of Orlando and the Space Coast, or further north in the coastal bend and Jacksonville, is just not clear yet. However, the risk is there for 10 or more inches of rainfall in a short period of time, which will lead to flash flooding.

Conclusions

If you’ve read this post up until now, you’ll realize that we cannot say much more at this time beyond stating that a serious hurricane threat is coming to the state of Florida this week. Sunday and Monday will be a time for preparations, as impacts such as wind and heavy rain are likely to reach the state as early as Tuesday evening.

We will have continuing coverage on The Eyewall as this very serious threat develops.