Memorial Day weekend has come and gone, Houston’s basketball season has unfortunately ended, and the first named storm has already graced the tropics—I guess we must acknowledge that summer has really and truly come to Houston. This means two things for the upper Texas coast: high pressure, and when there’s not high pressure it means the region is open to tropical moisture. To that end, with the onset of hurricane season, we’ll have some additional content this week. Later today, in fact, I’ll answer some commonly asked questions about Houston and hurricanes. Later this week Matt will talk about how Hurricane Harvey changed the way local meteorologists were challenged and changed by the storm.
Tuesday
For now, high pressure ridging will remain dominant. There really is not a whole lot to say as we settle into a familiar pattern of warm, sunny days, with high temperatures in the low- to mid-90s, and warm nights in the mid- to upper-70s.
Wednesday through Saturday
More of the same. We could see a few more clouds on Wednesday as moisture levels rise a bit, but I’m pretty sure that a capping inversion will stamp out any real rain chances. The rest of the week looks mostly sunny, with continued highs in the low- to mid-90s and warm overnight temperatures. It could be worse. This pressure ridge will bring highs in 105- and even 110-degree range this week for some areas of West Texas.
Sunday and beyond
A handful of the ensemble members of the GFS and European models show a very weak front reaching the metro area by the second half of the weekend. If this happens—and I’d say we’re in “So you’re telling me there’s a chance” territory—the region might see some scattered showers on Sunday, and some drier air to start next week. But for now the smart bet is probably just on continued hot and sunny. The greater likelihood is that most of Houston is probably at least 10 days away from significant rainfall.
Classic reference to one of the best Lloyd Christmas quotes.
Good ole high pressure ridge, a blessing and a curse. I like it because it helps keep the hurricanes away, and I hate it cause it keeps us hot and sticky. Gotta love Houston.
Ahhh… High pressure ridges, and capping inversions. Dry, oppressive, heat, but I’ll not complain about any weather pattern that keep shoving those tropical systems away from H-Town.
Rock-On Summer! It’ll be gone before we know it.
We’ve reached the time of year, unfortunately, where you can probably just copy and paste the same post everyday.
Unless we are about to be whacked again by a hurricane.
We could, indeed. But rather we’re challenging ourselves to say something new and interesting every day. I’ll let you know how that’s going in July…
10 Days?? Wait a minute, what was all that “one in a million” talk?
This pattern feels like something that usually comes along later in the summer (hot, dry, high pressure that blocks any hope of rain). Is this what we need to expect all summer?
What’s it going to take to shift the pattern around? Are we really dealing with La Nina type systems?
As an ag producer, I’m critically concerned. Storms that have come through our area keep missing us — going 20 miles in either direction but not hitting us. I think we’ve accumulated less than 5 inches since the start of the year (and were dry last fall after the hurricane), and we typically see 35+ inches on average per year. We luckily got 0.4″ with the storms a week and a half ago that got some fertilizer into the ground, but that was hardly enough for lasting moisture.
Just wondering what the overall outlook is (and point out that things have been very spotty/scattered lately).
Hi Tyson. I wish I had better news for you, but as of now most of the seasonal modeling indicates that June through August will be moderately drier than normal. As it often goes with summertime rain in the Houston region, I fear we’ll either see feast or famine with rainfall.
Perhaps you could add the percent chance of downtown skyscrapers melting on a particular day to your forecast?
This is a feature we should definitely implement.