Warm this week, yes, but winter proper arrives by Monday

Good morning. It’s still warm out there, but winter — real winter for Houston — is finally in sight.

TODAY

It’s incredibly warm this morning in Houston. The record for a high minimum temperature today is 68 degrees, and this morning’s low was just 71 degrees. There’s a slight chance of rain this morning before skies clear out this afternoon and evening. We should see some sunshine and high temperatures could approach 80 degrees.

CHRISTMAS EVE

As some drier air moves in on Wednesday it will allow for some moderately cooler overnight conditions on Thursday morning, with lows at least 10 degrees cooler than today. However this won’t last as moisture comes charging back in from the Gulf of Mexico. This is unlikely to produce much rain, but it will set the stage for a wet holiday weekend.

See full post

Our sweltering December in perspective, and my official Christmas forecast

I’ll get to the forecast for Christmas week and weekend in a minute, but first I wanted to put some of this month’s temperatures into perspective.

DECEMBER

Houston has had a warm December, but how warm? The answer is not that much warmer than normal.  So far this month has had an average temperature of 58.0 degrees, and that’s going to probably end up a few degrees higher by the end of this week given what’s ahead.

Nevertheless, as the chart below shows, even an average temperature of 60 degrees would remain well beneath the all-time record for December (set way back in 1889), and it’s far from a certainty that this December will even finish within the city of Houston’s top 10 warmest Decembers.

(SpaceCityWeather.com)
Note 2015 data are through Saturday. (SpaceCityWeather.com)

See full post

A little more autumn weather through Saturday

So another winner of a day is on tap for Friday: Lots of sun and highs actually a couple degrees cooler than we saw yesterday. Saturday should be similarly nice, with just a few high clouds perhaps later in the day and highs in the low 60s.

SUNDAY

No real serious weather worries are expected here, but we will start to notice significant changes. Dewpoints should slowly creep up from the 50s into the lower 60s later Sunday. We’ll also add a good bit of cloud cover to the mix with temperatures back up near 70°.

See full post