Good morning! We are in store for a delightful weekend of weather here in Houston, so I want to touch on a couple items before we get into the forecast details: Hurricane season & drought.
Changes coming to the 2021 hurricane season
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) met this week, as they do each year to discuss hurricane names that should be retired, among other items. If you have not yet heard, some newsworthy items came out of that meeting.
First off, several storm names were retired. Since they didn’t meet due to the pandemic last year, both 2019 and 2020 were addressed this year. For 2019, the only retiree was Hurricane Dorian, which devastated the Bahamas in particular. Tropical Storm Imelda, which killed 6 and caused roughly $5 billion in damage as a storm many across Southeast Texas won’t soon forget was not retired. Imelda will appear again in 2025. For 2020, Hurricane Laura was retired. Hurricanes Eta and Iota, which both devastated Nicaragua were also retired. For those curious, Dexter will replace Dorian in 2025 and Leah will replace Laura in 2026.
In addition, the Greek alphabet was retired. No, really. The WMO agreed that if a season’s name list was exhausted, shifting to a list of Greek letters was too confusing. So they now have what amounts to an auxiliary list of storm names that will be utilized in the event we use all the names on the primary list for that season.
I believe that if one of those names is retired, it will just disappear and be replaced like any other season. Previously, they could not retire Greek letters.
Thoughts: Matt’s opinion here, but I’m not entirely surprised Imelda was not retired. That doesn’t necessarily make it right, as I feel Imelda coming sort of on the heels of Harvey makes it a special case for a highly populated, if small-ish area of impact. Claudette in 1979, which flooded Alvin terribly was never retired either. So there is certainly precedent, but again, if it were Matt’s decision, retiring Imelda would kind of be like having Harold Baines in the Baseball Hall of Fame. There’s a case one could make there, even if it is very, very borderline. As far as the Greek letters being canned? I like it a lot. I think this is absolutely the right decision, and it will create much less confusion and distraction, should we get there again.
Drought worsening
The Drought Monitor was updated yesterday, and although Wednesday’s rain is not included in this calculation, drought did worsen across both Texas as a whole and locally in the Houston area.
The only part of Texas not really seeing drought get worse is the El Paso area and far west, as drought is already pretty bad there. The Greater Houston area went from about 35 percent of the region in drought last week to almost 60 percent this week. NOAA’s outlook for the next few months suggests drought will maintain or worsen across Texas.
As we’ve noted, this is a story we will continue to follow.
Today & weekend
We will close out the week on a cool but sunny note. There are some high clouds that could drop in from the north today, but short of that, expect sunshine and 60s this afternoon with a bit less wind than yesterday. Saturday should be similar with mainly sunshine but at least some chance of high clouds at times. We’ll start in the 40s in most places tomorrow, warming into the 60s, with areas south and west of Houston pushing back near 70 degrees.
Our winds will shift onshore on Sunday, with warmer, more humid air beginning to gradually filter in off the Gulf. Look for morning lows in the 40s and low-50s and highs in the upper-60s to low-70s and a good bit of sunshine once again.
Next week
A pair of upper level systems will move into the region, with the first arriving later Monday and Tuesday and another later in the week. These will each help drive a cold front into the Houston area, along with a chance of showers and storms. As is often the case this time of year, there are questions as to how far offshore the fronts will get or if they (particularly the first one) will fall apart over us. Either way, look for a somewhat unsettled week next week with a couple days of rain chances and generally warm temperatures. We should see a final front push well off to our east and somewhat cooler weather arrive by later in the week or next weekend. We will have finer details for you on Monday.
Hmmmm…. how stupid have we become as a people if the Greek alphabet causes confusion?
Wait, don’t answer that. Sadly, I think I know the answer.
Retire Greek letters? Of course! Let me ∑ this up for you. The WMO says there’s no room in science for Greek letters.
Wait, I thought there’s always room for pi.
I disagree with you Matt. It is a shame to think that the American population, may be the world population, has gotten to a point where the Greek alphabet is confusing to them. Latin and Greek used to be taught in schools of higher education but apparently it started waning in the 50s and 60s. Although we do have outstanding high schools, colleges and universities, they appear to be dumbing down our educational systems in some ways. Thanks so much Matt and Eric for your great newsletter!
Cindy, when I was in high school (admittedly shortly after the Earth’s crust cooled) in Ohio, our foreign language options were Latin and German. I took the latter since I was on a science/engineering track. I have a friend who grew up in another state who also had Latin in high school.
It’s a shame we are throwing away what our culture, and for that matter our governing and legal institutions are based on for some Brave New World.
(BTW – I spent one year, third grade, in a suburban Chicago school system where French was mandatory in elementary school.)
I get that. I voluntarily took Latin in HS for 3 years, which I loved, but truthfully, in our world today, I would have been much better served taking Spanish. Alas. But I think it’s less that the alphabet is confusing to them and rather the attention that’s drawn to the fact that we were “going Greek” last year, many storm names sounded similar, and there was no plan for retiring the names really made it an unnecessary distraction in an otherwise distraction-filled year.
Let’s not also forget that one shouldn’t need to have access to better education to deserve safety from a hurricane.
I suspect that we will be seeing drought conditions for the next few years. It always seems to go in patterns. Last year I said I thought we would see a drought for 2020, and was promptly laughed at for the comment. But, if you watch the weather closely, you’ll noticed these patterns. Patterns of a few years of large amounts of rainfall, then followed by a few years of little rainfall.
I think that what was confusing last year was the storm-naming inflation that led to the use of so many Greek letters last year. It seemed to me, especially early in the year, that there were a number of depressions given a name with no definite circulation obvious (to my untrained eye at least) that had no impact and quickly petered out or disappeared shortly after being named. People will take a name seriously when there is an impact to be felt from it and not just any old rainstorm should get one.
Naming has to do with wind speed, not impact. Isn’t that so?
Your Harold Baines analogy was great. IMO, he doesn’t belong in the HOF.
It’s interesting that we are in a drought situation whe. My yard has not been dry for a couple of months. I live 30 minutes southwest of Houston. My dad’s place at lake livingstone still has water standing in his yard. Been there for a couple of months. I guess I just don’t understand drought.
I think the only weather thing dumber than naming tropical storms is naming winter storms.
I propose that tropical storms simply be numbered. The full official name would be 2021-A1 for the first storm in the Atlantic basin, and use P for the Pacific basin. We would call that storm A1 (or A01 if you want to distinguish it from the steak sauce) for short. Or you could reverse it and call it 1A, then 2A, etc. with the full names being 2021-1A.
You wouldn’t have to worry about retiring names, spelling unusual names, running out of names in a bad season, having people feel bad because they have the same name as a bad storm, etc. It also makes it much easier to tell how many storms we’ve had in a season because most people don’t know what number storm “Pax” is.
I’m confused on what’s confusing about the Greek letters. What am I missing here? I mean, I don’t care if they get rid of it and if it’s confusing to people, then it should be gotten rid of. It’s better to save lives than be elitist, just curious what confused people.
I read an article that said people were confused by the Zeta/Eta/Theta combo that occurred all in progression, and were also confused thinking Zeta might be the last letter of the Greek alphabet (when it’s only like the sixth). Also that somehow they might not take the names as seriously but I dunno… last season was just crazy!
Oh, I can see that. Better to have people safe and in the know.