On Saturday evening Matt and I exchanged several e-mails discussing the possibility of storms today. We were concerned about the ongoing forecast, given that a number of forecast models weren’t showing much support for widespread severe weather in Houston on Sunday. This was largely due to the potential for the atmosphere over Houston to remain capped, which seemed like a distinct possibility based upon some of the available data. At the same time, other variables indicated the likelihood of an active weather day, and the National Weather Service and NOAA were continuing to forecast Houston under a “moderate” risk for severe weather, including the potential for tornadoes. So we were left with a dilemma—should we be an outlier and call attention to the possibility of a bust?
We decided not to, both because we still thought there was a decent threat of severe weather, and we didn’t want to offer a conflicting message to that from the official forecast warning offices, whose work we respect and trust.
Understandably, if you live in Harris County or closer to the coast, you’re probably wondering where the tornadoes are, not to mention the rain. Probably half of the region didn’t see more than a sprinkle on Sunday. Some people canceled plans for today, based upon forecasts for severe weather. That is how it goes sometimes, and we are the first to acknowledge that we will make mistakes, as we did Friday, Saturday and Sunday with regard to storms in Houston today. What we want readers to understand is that our mistake was made out of imperfect information, rather than a desire to cause unnecessary alarm. (It is also worth noting that some very severe weather developed north, and northeast of Houston today, it just happened to be about 100 miles, or more, away from central Houston).
Why should you believe us? Our web site has no advertising. We have a sponsor, and we have sold out sponsorships for the rest of the year. There is literally no incentive for us to push the threat of severe weather for clicks, page views, or ratings. We have support for the site regardless. If our credibility is our most valuable asset—and we believe it is—then we actually have a strong disincentive to hype weather.
In any case, we’ll continue to do the best we can for you. Happily, after some lingering showers clear the area this afternoon, Houston is going to have some pretty darn nice weather this week. We’ll have full details on that in the morning.
Posted at 2:50pm CT on Sunday by Eric
(Space City Weather is sponsored this month by The Mole, a Jonathon Price novel.
Eric & Matt, you guys are the ONLY forecasters who even acknowledge when things don’t happen the way it looks like they will, and for that – and more, of course – you are the most reliable source in the Houston area. I believe most of your readers have been educated by you guys to understand that there is a wide range of variables in weather forecasting. Thanks again for your work.
Here here!
It is what it is. You know the line – if you don’t like the weather here, just wait a bit. You don’t control the weather, just do the best you can to predict it.
We appreciate all you do. Wearing the T-shirt today to advertise.
We are about 10 miles north of Magnolia. We had thunderstorms earlier this morning and heavy rains and some wind late morning/mid-day. Raining had stopped about 1:30 and now the sun is out. Weather may have not been as bad as some had predicted, but it was bad enough. No apologies necessary Eric. This site provides realistic weather information and is much appreciated.
I saw a forecast discussion by a NWS guy early Saturday in which he noted the possibility of the system getting drug quickly to the northeast and thus diminishing the impact on SE Texas. I thought, “Yep, that’s it.”
Most people have no clue how difficult it is to forecast a chaotic system a.k.a. our weather. Y’all are doing a fine job–carry on.
Thanks!
It could be worse, you could be trying to forecast the price of oil years in advance.
Boom, then bust, boom, then bust.
You are hereby granted a mulligan.
Better to be safe than sorry. Thanks for the work you do, guys.
You do the best you can with the tools and experience you have. You cannot mind read Mother Nature, or her penchant for changing her mind at the last minute. I appreciate all the work you do.
Your batting average is far above most! Keep up the good work!
Don’t worry that we, your loyal readers, view “mis-casts” as a credibility issue. Even with modern satellites and computers, no doubt Mother Nature sometimes is fickle. As one who had extensive property damage in Ike, I tell all who listen that you called that hurricane as a threat when it was a mere wave off Africa. That sold me on your expertise then and now. Have a good week.
No worries! The fact that you do not add to the hysteria for eye balls is the main reason I focus on your forecast. And a bonus is not having to sit through 20+ minutes of “if it bleeds it leads” uh, er, “news.”
Thank you for understanding we don’t really want the hype.
Your weather forecast email is the first one I read. I look for it as it is always nicely written and entertaining, much more so than the ones that appear on weather.gov and the Weather Channel. Don’t worry about miscalculating today’s forecast–though as a rain lover, I admit I was disappointed we didn’t get a storm!
Thank you!
Y’all are our most reliable go-to source regarding the weather. Stuff happens and we understand it’s not an exact science.
In restrospect I’m wondering what harm there might have been in sharing the gist of your exchange with Matt without changing your warnings.
I really appreciate everything you guys are doing.
For me you guys are hands down the best source for weather news forecasting etc. So keep up the good work you guys do and thanks for the integrity in which you do it.
Still the ONLY source for weather that I fully trust. You didn’t oversell, you acknowledged that the threat was there and for that I am grateful.
How dare you publish an inaccurate forecast! Where’s my refund for all the good money I pay to read your blog? Oh, I forgot, you don’t charge anything…. OK, well, how about an apology for subjecting us to all the hype and sensationalism that forces us to read your stuff? Oh, I forgot… your site doesn’t have any hype or sensationalism… OK, well, how about refunding me for that umbrella I bought dude!
OK, I didn’t really buy an umbrella, but if I had, I’d be really miffed!
Tongue firmly in cheek, JB
I never thought of it as a miss, I just thought my prayers had been answered. I am afraid of severe weather and spent Saturday praying the storms would miss Houston and that no lives would be harmed. Thanks for all you do Eric and Matt.
I’ll take credit for the lack of severe weather in Houston today. I specifically asked my my wife to drop me off at work this morning so I could leave my truck home in the garage. I didn’t want it getting pounded in a hail storm like we had 2 or so years ago. I’m sure if I had rolled the dice we would have had a major storm in the Spring-Tomball area.
Well if it makes you feel better I ran our “tropical storm” drill and found out my generators are on the fritz. So I’m happy I figured that out before the real thing.
Eric and Matt – you both do a fantastic job given an incredibly challenging line of work. No need to apologize! In the end we got to go outside and have fun in Houston. Thanks for all that you do.
I started reading Eric’s weather reports several years ago in the “Houston Chronicle ” and quickly found that they were the most reliable around. No hype, just information. Space City Weather is the first thing I look at each morning. Good weather rather than a storm always welcome! Keep up the good work.
I realize the new social media age gives a voice to the uneducated masses to monday morning quarterback your forecast but don’t get discouraged. I read your website because you guys do the best job explaining what goes into the forecast and the risks associated with that forecast. Reading your website, I knew there was a chance that this turned out to be nothing. If there is a chance of severe weather, I’d rather know about it in advance.
Thank you Chris!
I’m with Jim M. (maybe because I’m James M.)…Eric/Matt…your analysis allows me to mix your assessment with the “hyper” versions and sorta reach my own conclusions on how worried I should be…I don’t ignore the TV warnings, but I recognize that they have to be quite conservative while you all focus on what the real data means to you…I grew up in Oklahoma and spent several hours in a “cellar ” in our back yard in the 40’s and 50’s…I figure a cellar here in Clear Lake would be full of water…you don’t need to apologize for anything…
As Sci Guy during hurricane season you were a “must follow” for years because you would speculate, within reason, outside the cone of info coming from NOAA.
If you’ve now decided you’re going to avoid conflict with the governmental weather guys then what’s the point?
We consider this weekend’s experience as a lesson learned.
For a few days ( you guys have said the worst would be North- of Houston proper) hard to nail weather in general but especially when it covers- Galveston to Conroe +. – Beaumont to Katy+
keep it up. great blog
Your forecast was spot on here in Walden on Lake Conroe. We did cancel our Spring Festival for today and I’m glad we did. Storms rolled through here this morning. It would have been a mess had we not heeded your information. Thanks for helping us make the right call. No regrets here.
We had enough heavy rain and storms at our house in Spring that the group tour we had scheduled got cancelled an hour before we were supposed to leave. So it was pretty ugly here for a short while — lots of lightning and wind.
So close enough. I don’t mind being spared ugly storms!
Eric and Matt,
No reason to fall on your swords over this. After all, the northern part of the metro area did have heavy weather, and you hedged about weather south of I10. Up in Conroe, we were under severe t-storm warnings and tornado watches. It rained hard, but no severe weather. The Gulf moisture converged with the MCS a little further north than predicted. This was good news! We were thankful. My question is, why apologize?
I get so tired of ” we think we can’t rule out the possibility that there could be an occasional shower or thunderstorm somewhere in or around the area …” At least you guys just tell us what the models say, where they disagree, and what your judgement and experience tells you is most likely to happen, without all the weasel words. Today your confidence was in an outcome that didn’t happen. That goes into the database so that when similar situations arise, your information may come from a more reliable source, or be interpreted differently.
At least you guys admit you’re wrong, but you were wrong. No excuses. Other big name TV weather people keep saying “Boy, Houston sure got lucky!”…no, you guys just got it wrong. People cancelled plans and adjusted their schedules because you guys said the world was going to end and now you can’t just come and say “we got lucky”. I don’t tell you how to your jobs but I do expect you to admit you’re wrong and fix it next time.
Most of the time, I can guess the weather better myself using the radar app on my phone than you guys with the fancy degrees and mega-super-doppler radars. How can that be? I bet you can’t do *MY* job half the time, much less most of the time.
None of these weather guys know what in the heck is going to happen they are just guessings for for the hell of it .. I do not trust any weather caster in this city .I still do not understand how we are so close to the coast and we do not get the rain but dallas and northeast texas get it . I think some people need to go back to school to learn more how to read the chart .What a waste of time and enery .. I do not even read these post or listen to the weather men they have NO NO clue what the heck is going on . We are going to be praying and beggings for rain in the next couple of months . Houston always get screw over when it come to weather . I knew it was to good to believe to be true to get any rain . I will keep reading my farm Almanac which get it right that men and women who went to school for this . so sad to fool the public ..
As someone who just recently started following this “Hype-free” web site, I’m a little disappointed. So by Saturday evening some of the models/data indicated the atmosphere would remain capped but you chose not to consider that in your forecasts. Why? Because you did not want to offer a “conflicting message”. We follow your web site because we want the best possible forecast at the time. If we were confused by changing forecasts we’d tune in to Channel 2 and listen to them tell us to “keep our guards up” when there is light drizzle outside. You also didn’t want to offer “a conflicting message to that from the official forecast warning offices”. Again, we might as well just watch the hyped local media if you guys are reluctant to go against the warning offices which will always error on the side of Extreme Caution and never (ok rarely) back off severe weather predictions. I understand, you don’t want to be the only weather service calling for moderate conditions when everyone else is telling us to hunker down and cancel soccer practice – and it actually happens. Just spare us the “Hype-free” mantra.
Please don’t stress over the “failure”. One of the reasons I love weather is that it is unpredictable. And the main reason I rely on your forecast is that you are reasonable in your approach to weather. I appreciate your candid, sane approach and will continue to read daily.
Would you consider doing a post on what it means for there to be a capping inversion, how you know when there is one, what kinds of tech are used to measure this sort of thing, etc. Thank you for all you do. This is really the only place I go for local weather forecasts…
Curious….did any of the models predict what actually happened? And it so, is/are this/these model/s consistently more accurate than others or is the accuracy amongst models all over the map (no pun intended…)?
Yes, some of the short-term models did accurately indicate that storms would largely avoid Houston. However other parameters were so favorable for storm formation it was very difficult to give the southern half of the metro area an “all clear” until the front had actually moved through.