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.

In brief: Houston will continue a string of hot days, but the nighttimes should become a bit more pleasant as well. A cool front on Monday will take care of that for us. Rain chances this weekend are mainly at the coast and mainly just scattered, and no real rain is expected next week. We have no tropical concerns in Texas.

There have only been two somewhat similar times that Houston has been through such a persistently lengthy stretch of hot weather so late in the season: 1904 and 2007. The 1904 stretch ended around October 12th, whereas the 2007 stretch ended on October 4th. So when can we get past this faux fall situation? Maybe soon? Maybe. But honestly, looking at the NWS forecast below, this string of upper 80s or hotter during the day may have another week left in it.

The good news in all this is that the nighttimes are running out of punch, and we should see lows in the 60s behind an expected cold front on Monday night or Tuesday. That front will also protect us from any tropical riff-raff in the Gulf of Mexico.

Today and Saturday

We already have a bunch of showers offshore this morning. We may see some of those work their way ashore through the day today. I have to be honest though: Consider yourself lucky if you see any rain.

Tomorrow should play out similarly, though I think the coverage of showers will be just a wee bit higher. Still, for the many fun weekend events we have happening in the Houston area this weekend from the Dash tonight to Southern Smoke to the Komen Race for the Cure, our forecast is that other than perhaps a passing shower or two, conditions look fine. Just stay hydrated, as it will be warm and somewhat humid this weekend.

Sunday

Rain chances will begin to slip slide away on Sunday. Texans tailgating will be a bit muggy but other than maybe a passing shower, it should be fine. We’ll be back into the 90s for highs.

Monday and Tuesday and beyond

We will get one push of drier air late Sunday, followed by another, stronger push of dry air Monday night or Tuesday morning with an actual cold front. This is really going to take a bite out of humidity levels, and it will feel extremely comfortable by the time we get to Tuesday. Even with hot afternoons, it will be a decent stretch of warm days and cooler nights for mid to late next week. But again, no real rain chances.

Tropics

We’ve been covering the tropics extensively over at The Eyewall, and we will continue to do so through the weekend.

There will be a sloppy situation evolving in the Gulf of Mexico over the upcoming week where tropical development is possible to some extent. But because of our push of dry air to start next week, everything will get pushed east of us toward Florida. If you’re planning a trip to Florida, just keep tuned into the forecasts and maybe prepare for rain through Wednesday or Thursday of next week. Then hopefully things quiet down.