In brief: As expected, the Houston region will continue to see healthy rain chances and lower temperatures for the Labor Day Weekend. With the heaviest rains mostly concentrated near the coast, a Stage 1 flood alert remains in effect for coastal counties. Also, could we really see our first fall front about a week from now?

This is just a short post on Sunday morning to say that our forecast for Labor Day Weekend, and beyond, is more or less on track. A large area of low pressure offshore will continue to push showers and thunderstorms inland for the next several days.

These rains will likely be most intense right along the coast, in places such as Galveston Island and points eastward to Port Arthur. For this reason, we are continuing to maintain a State 1 flood alert for coastal counties. This simply means that, in the stronger storms, there is the potential for some street flooding. We do not anticipate widespread, significant issues.

Rain chances will be lower for areas located inland of Interstate 10, but the entire metro area will have the possibility of seeing showers and thunderstorms into the middle part of next week as the pressure system continues to wobble near the upper Texas coast.

This means that our skies will remain partly to mostly cloudy, and this should keep daytime high temperatures in the vicinity of the upper 80s to 90 degrees through next Wednesday or Thursday. Sunnier weather should arrive by the end of this week, with diminished rain chances.

I don’t want to sell this too hard, but much of our model guidance is continuing to advertise the possibility of a cool front arriving by next Sunday or Monday. It’s far enough away to still have some doubts about whether this will happen, but it’s not impossible that we’ll see a couple of nights in the 60s with some drier air. I almost hate to write about it, because I don’t want to jinx it. I’ll have more on the likelihood of this front in tomorrow’s post.

Tropics

As for the tropics, we’re continuing to watch the Gulf of Mexico low pressure system. Because of its proximity to land, further development into a tropical depression is unlikely, but possible. There’s also a tropical wave the Atlantic Ocean nearing the Caribbean Sea. Not much has changed with this system. It’s possible that a tropical low eventually gets into the Gulf of Mexico, or it’s possible that nothing ever comes of this tropical wave. We’ll just need to keep watching for a few more days to see what happens. Matt will have more on this on The Eyewall this afternoon.

In brief: Houston faces a wet Labor Day Weekend, but our flooding concerns are clustered primarily along the coast. Mostly cloudy skies will keep a lid on temperatures over the holiday weekend, keeping things dare I say almost comfortable outside most of the time? We are also tracking the tropics as they begin to heat up.

Good morning. We’re providing updates through this weekend on Space City Weather due to the ongoing potential for heavy rainfall through early next week. However, our Stage 1 flood alert remains in effect only for coastal counties, from Galveston County eastward. This is where our modeling continues to indicate the potential for some street flooding over the next several days. For example, here’s where the likelihood of heavy rainfall is greatest for today:

The rains into next week will be driven by an upper-level low pressure system lingering off the Texas coast. As we discussed on Friday, there is a small possibility this system develops tropical characteristics with a surface center of low pressure over the Labor Day weekend, but most likely its main impact will be as a rainmaker for coastal areas.

As often happens with these systems, the heavy rainfall is clustered mostly offshore. But areas such as Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula will be well within the threat area, and may pick up 5 or even 10 inches of rainfall through the middle of next week. It won’t rain all of the time, but coastal counties should expect a pretty decent soaking through about next Wednesday.

As for areas further inland, including most of the Houston metro area, showers will be hit or miss this weekend. Rain chances will depend on how far you live from the coast, but over the Labor Day weekend you can at least expect a healthy chance of a passing shower or thunderstorm each day. One benefit of the cloudy skies this weekend is cooler temperatures, particularly for the end of August and into early September. Highs, for the most part, will be in the upper 80s to about 90 degrees each day—and even cooler closer to the coast. Often, we’re 10 degrees hotter at this time of year.

Tropics

We’re starting to see activity pick up in the tropics. If you want a full rundown, please check The Eyewall later this morning, where Matt will have a comprehensive update on everything we know before noon today. In addition to the aforementioned system in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, we’re also closely monitoring a tropical wave in the Central Atlantic. It will move into the Caribbean Sea early next week.

There it will find blazing hot seas, but at this time most of our modeling guidance is not too aggressive about developing it into a tropical storm or hurricane early next week. However, toward the end of next week this wave/tropical system will be nearing the western edge of the Caribbean Sea. After that point it could move into the Gulf of Mexico. We’re talking about a period 7 to 10 days from now, so uncertainty is very high. There’s not a whole lot we can say about what happens at that point, so we’ll continue to watch it.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend, everyone. We’ll be back with another post on Sunday morning to assess things.

In brief: On Friday afternoon the National Hurricane Center began tracking an area of low pressure over the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. To put this threat into perspective, we’re going to share content published earlier today on The Eyewall. Though a serious system is not likely to develop, locally heavy rain and flash flooding are a good bet along the coasts of Texas and Louisiana into next week

We’ve been discussing it all week on The Eyewall, but low pressure has now officially formed in the Gulf, with a surface low analyzed offshore of Galveston and Sabine Pass. The National Hurricane Center now highlights this area with a 20 percent chance of development.

The surface low is rather broad, so it’s not as if we have a rapidly intensifying tropical system off the coast. But we have low pressure in the Gulf, which is always something of note. Any development risk from this is very low-end in terms of winds and waves. But in terms of rain, this will be a source for some serious coastal rainfall in the coming days, development or no development. Rain totals through next week may tally up an additional 5 to 10 inches between Galveston and Vermilion Bay in Louisiana.

While there are no flood watches posted currently (except in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge areas), there is some potential for flooding to occur in coastal counties and parishes. Places like Galveston, Port Arthur, and Cameron through Morgan City and New Orleans could definitely see at least localized street flooding crop up. With a surface low now offshore, most of the rain will likely consolidate around that feature, meaning that inland places like Houston and perhaps Lake Charles see less rain, less often.

This will be a very coastal-focused feature. The low should meander in the days ahead offshore. Thankfully, upper level conditions aren’t super conducive for development, so again any organization or strengthening would probably be very sluggish and the ceiling from this is rather low it seems. As the system meanders, it could end up onshore in Louisiana or back toward the middle Texas coast, so proximity to land will also act against its development.

Bottom line: This is not a major concern, but it bears some watching and it will, at the least, deliver locally heavy rain and flash flooding potential on the Texas and Louisiana coasts.

In brief: Periods of showers and storms will meander through the region over the holiday weekend. While most places should handle this fine, there remains a chance that coastal areas, especially between Chambers County and Port Arthur see some very heavy rainfall, requiring us to maintain our Stage 1 flood alert for coastal counties.

Rain thus far has been very scattered across the area. Just about everyone has seen a little, several places have seen a moderate amount (1 or 2 inches), and only a handful of places have seen a lot (about 4 inches). This pattern will continue, and we’ll maintain a Stage 1 flood alert for the coastal counties out of an abundance of caution. This does not include Houston proper or points north and west. This is one of those difficult cases to communicate. Modeling continues to flag the Port Arthur area into eastern Chambers County as a potential focal point for very heavy rainfall heading into the weekend. At the same time, we’ll probably just see periodic, manageable scattered downpours in Houston. But because there’s an element of risk near our area, it merits decent coverage. We’ll be with you through the holiday weekend as needed for updates.

Today

Radar this morning shows a lot of rain offshore and along the coast.

This was all generally moving parallel to the coast and more toward the eastern Chambers and western Jefferson County areas. I would expect to see showers pop off today around Houston eventually. However, with all this rain offshore, sometimes this tends to “rob” inland areas of any moisture. So all in all, it may not be too bad of a day in Houston and points north and west. So expect more just “passing” showers today and probably a good deal of cloud cover. Highs will be in the 80s in most places to low-90s north and west of Houston where more sun is likely.

Saturday & Sunday

There will continue to be a healthy chance of passing showers and storms both days this weekend ahead of the holiday. Neither day looks like a total washout, but there could be abundant clouds at times, and you’ll obviously want some backup plans in case rain hits your location for a time. Other than that, it will remain warm and fairly humid with highs in the upper-80s to low-90s and morning lows in the upper-70s.

Labor Day & Tuesday

Copy and paste the weekend, but with perhaps just slightly lower rain chances.

Rest of next week

We’ll likely continue to see daily shower and storm chances continue Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but the setup may continue to gradually become a little less impressive. This may mean a little less coverage with each successive day. There continue to be rumors and allegations of a cool front next weekend. A cool front in early September means a drop in humidity, slightly cooler nighttimes, and hot daytimes. So, don’t get too worked up just yet. Much like Eric suggested yesterday, about a 25 percent chance this happens seems reasonable, though I will say that modeling has been nothing if not persistent with this signal since as far back as at least last weekend. Fingers crossed!

Tropics

Before we even dive in here, one cold front does not mean the end of hurricane season here in Texas. I looked at the data for this last year and determined no correlation. So, we do still need to keep tabs on the tropics.

The disturbance in the Atlantic is likely going to track into the Caribbean. As of right now, most model data supports a turn to the north at some point. However, where that occurs is impossible to say right now. It’s still early in the game here, so let’s keep an eye on this as it comes westward over the next week or so. Behind that there is another development candidate, and that too should hopefully turn north before getting too far west. So, for now we don’t have any serious threats here. But stay tuned. I’ll cover this more in depth at The Eyewall later.