In brief: After Tuesday’s mild weather, winter is back on the menu this morning and it’s a feast for all. With gusty winds today it will feel cold all day and night. By early Thursday morning temperatures should fall below freezing for all of the metro area, with the possible exception of the immediate coast. Thursday night into Friday morning will be nearly as cold.
Cold and gusty
Be sure and bundle up before heading outside this morning. Air temperatures are generally in the mid- to upper-30s across the metro area. However, with northerly winds at about 20 mph, and gusts of 30 mph or higher, it feels considerably colder. These strong winds will be with us for most of today, so it will be brisk all day long. Fortunately the precipitation is over so we have no concerns about ice or anything like that on roads for the next couple of days.
Our biggest concern will be cold, with a light freeze likely for most of the Houston metro area, and a hard freeze (25 degrees, or below) is possible for inland areas, including The Woodlands and Katy. This freeze should be less impactful than the one we experienced earlier this winter, when temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees colder. Statewide, much of Texas will be in a deep freeze. However, ERCOT forecasts that sufficient electricity should be available.
Wednesday
Wind chills are in the teens across much of Houston this morning, and we’ll be slow to warm up with partly to mostly cloudy skies. Eventually temperatures should reach the upper-40s this afternoon, but I don’t expect these gusty winds to die down before this evening, or even the overnight hours. With partially clear skies and lesser winds, tonight should bring the coldest temperatures for Houston. The map below shows the best estimate for minimum temperatures on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
Thursday
Although the winds will be lighter, we can still see some gusts of 15 or 20 mph on Thursday morning, so when you add the wind chill on top of frigid air temperatures, we’re looking at wind chills in the teens again. So another morning to really bundle up before heading outside. Skies will be sunny on Thursday, so that will be nice. (And it’s probably our last sustained sunshine until Sunday afternoon or Monday, so soak it up). But it will still be cold, in the mid-40s. Expect another cold night, with temperatures perhaps 1 or 2 degrees warmer than Wednesday night.
Friday
Clouds will build back in, making for a very chilly day. Expect highs to maybe only top out at about 40 degrees. Fortunately, with the thick clouds, temperatures won’t fall much on Friday night.
Saturday
We’ll start to warm up on Saturday, but the proximity of a low over the Gulf of Mexico will bring a healthy chance of showers into the forecast for Saturday during the day, and likely well into the evening. I don’t think these will be particularly impactful rains, but with air temperatures generally in the vicinity of 50 degrees on Saturday, any light to moderate showers will be cold and unwelcome. Lows on Saturday night drop into the mid-40s.
Sunday
Some light showers may linger into Sunday morning, but by the afternoon I expect to see some partially clearing skies. Temperatures will be warmer, with highs in the low 60s. This should lead to a period of mostly sunny skies.
Next week
Spring is in full bloom next week, with highs generally in the 70s and lows in the 50s. We should see plenty of sunshine. A weak front may move in toward the end of the work week, but at this point it does not appear as though there will be much of a cold air push with it.
I am Not hearing any comments regarding covering plants or moving them into the garage ??? So I’m hoping that Clear Lake is not going to get. Old enough to harm them ! Pipes are still covered from the previous frrrze! Thanks for all your advice and knowledge
If you want yo be cautious, protect your plants if possible
Well, yesterdays rain was quite impactful. Got that one wrong.
It was right in line with the forecast for me
Rain bullseyes happens.
It happened to happen in
Northwest Houston; Word….
I hope folks in the northern and western suburbs took care of their sensitive plants yesterday already. This front is stronger than advertised.
Well, last night the NWS forecast a low of 37 this morning for my area (Champions), but the low was actually 32. That’s a 5 degree miss. I wonder if they have tomorrow’s forecast low of 26 right.
2.88″ of rain yesterday, way more than expected..it was like a tropical storm!
The 1/2 inch of rain forecasted for yesterday turned into 3 1/2 inches. It would be nice to know ahead of time what the implied multiplier on the rain forecast is. 5X a good place to start?
It’s 33 in the URBAN CORE (610 loop) already and still cloudy. A lot of cold advection then radiative cooling tonight. I’d say 26 for a low tomorrow looks a bit high – depends on when the clouds break. WU says 30 tomorrow….lol
The weather in Texas is off its meds again
lol
It seems like the models miss the lows on these arctic fronts by an average of 2-5 degrees. Most of Houston is colder than they forecasted this morning. I have seen it enough times to think that for whatever reason the models have a warm bias…
Yes. Not just in Houston. Out in College Station, we were predicted a low of 28. We have a low of 23.
It’s still better than three weeks straight of 100+.
Word
Mid to upper 30s this morning? I’ve got 29 out in western burbs.
The NWS has 46 for a high today at IAH. We will test the accuracy.
Take the under
I’ll be looking back on this weather fondly when we’re 2 months into 100+ degree weather and/or waiting for power to be restored after another major hurricane…
LMAO
Damn you Al Gore
I see that the NWS has added freezing rain into this morning’s forecast. That’s probably because lots of people saw freezing rain and reported it. There has even been a little fine snow. This was not in the forecast a couple of hours ago.
Why are yall so bad at predicting cold weather? It happens EVERY SINGLE TIME… today was not supposed to be below 32 degrees according to ALL the models and all the forecasts. NOBODY had it right. It is 11 am in west houston and we are at 32 and has not gone up! The duration of this is what kills plants and crops. Warnings need to be issued and yet they are not. The forecast was supposed to be for THURSDAY MORNING not now. What happened? Why is it always this bad? Same with rain. We weren’t supposed to get 3 inches… I mean the forecasts are accurate on fair days but on cold fronts and storms they are terrible. What a waste of time to follow this page and others. Why are you guys even posting this blog full of lies? What is the motivation? Im genuinely curious now. Because accuracy and forecasting is NOT it.
All they do is take the forecast and put it into words, and if there are diverging models, they just present all the scenarios. They’re pretty up front about this, but I would love it they gave their opinions on the forecast, drawing from the years of experiences, even if they end up being wrong (ends up being wrong a lot anyway). If they did this and kept his political views out, I’d probably frequent this site a lot more.
“Climate change is real” isn’t a political view. It is a provable fact that no reputable researcher denies. On the contrary, you are the one dragging in politics to the discussion by taking a stance that fails to align with logic, reason, and observable, provable evidence.
(Don’t try to reach for google to substantiate your unsubstantiated position. There is no credible research that points to any other conclusion. No credible study is in your side. Anything you can find that does has been thoroughly disproven.)
Fortunately, much like God, anthropogenic climate change doesn’t need you to believe in it for you to be affected by it. Enjoy the next 30 years of increasingly wild extremes—winter, summer, and everything in between.
(And don’t reach for Genesis here and God’s promise not to ever again destroy the world, either. Anthropogenic climate change won’t “destroy the world.” But it will reshape coastlines and upend economies and kill a lot of people. All things God seems fine with.)
‘Much like God, anthropogenic climate change doesn’t need you to believe in it for you to be affected by it.” Exactly. Truth is truth, regardless of what either party thinks about it.
Also, if climate change “destroyed the world,” it would be us directly destroying it, not God (except in the sense that God made the laws of nature).
It will never matter how much evidence there is to demonstrate that the climate is warming on a global scale. Deniers will always say that human caused climate change is fake because it got real cold on this one day or that the Earth was hotter at some point 90 million years ago.
“Enjoy the next 30 years of increasingly wild extremes—winter, summer, and everything in between.”
What caused all the wild extremes we had prior to the Industrial Revolution?
Why don’t you go search for the answer yourself rather than try to play gotcha? It’s easy to find. You’ll have to set aside your confirmation bias and accept answers from sources like NOAA and NASA, but they’re right there for you to read.
Besides, you’re not even debating in good faith. You’re trying to reframe the argument right out the gate, suggesting with your leading question that proponents of climate change believe all climate change must be man-made, or that ANY amount of natural climate change means anthropogenic climate change is silly.
Are you really that ignorant, or are you just bad at actually having a fact-based argument?
Lemme help, just in case it’s the former: earths climate is always changing because it’s a carefully balanced set of systems that push and pull on each other and thereby maintain equilibrium. The rate of change being directly observed now is a massive gross deviation from all historical and predicted norms.
This is all incredibly easy for you to self-educate on, and the global scientific consensus is completely aligned because the observable evidence is both overwhelming and conclusive. The only people who don’t accept anthropogenic climate change are ignorant of facts, trapped by their politics, or selling something.
Which are you?
A little worried here that the models are off with respect to how cold it is and how cold it may get tonight. Model hourly forecast says we should be 40 in Richmond at noon today. It’s 32 here at 11:29 am. Wondering if we’re gonna ride 8 degrees in 30 minutes…
Yeah, the data is off, but it’s not SCW. Worried about NOAA.
yeah. that’s what i meant. NOAA -not SCW.
Chill y’all. Shallow arctic fronts usually come through a little faster and colder at the beginning than forecast. I don’t think it will make as much of a difference to the low temps tonight. I could be wrong though.
I blame the internet. Time was we didn’t bother with reading weather forecasts yet we survived but now we expect weather updates by the minute and complain when they may be off a few degrees. Perhaps it is time to step back and ponder our need to be constantly fed data – because we have apparently lost the ability to manage our lives without someone telling us by the second how to process what is going on around us.
But your using the internet to voice your opinion about how we should limit our use of internet… lol
Still 26F on the front porch here in Hempstead at noon.
Up here in Magnolia, in the last 30 minutes, it has dropped another degree, so now at 28°F. It was lingering at 29° since about 7am.
We frequent WUnderground. The temperature map shows 28 from here, down to Tomball. (there are many PWS stations in agreement).
We also frequent the MSN weather site. It has some pretty cool graphical map views (some in motion). Looking at the “sliding” horizontal temperature graphic, it will ONLY get up to 33° at 2pm (!!) today, then the graph slowly slides DOWNWARD and hits 22° at 7am Thur. It shows we won’t get above freezing all day Thur.
From past experience, we think we’ll get down to 20° Thur morning … plus MSN shows we won’t get near 40° until Sat 👎
Seems the mediaologists were right.
It’s currently 31 at IAH. As I write this at 1:30 PM it should be pretty close to the high for the day. A full 15 degrees colder than the forecast high. This is probably the worst bust I have seen when it comes to a forecast in many, many years. For whatever reason the models dropped the ball on this one.
At 1:45 p.m. local, KIAH is at 30 deg F, with an 18 wind chill; KHOU is 32 with a 19 wind chill. According to the time series we’ve already had our high for the day an hour or two ago.
Probably going to need to go ahead and call it a miss on the “temps will rise to the upper 40s by the afternoon” on this one fellas. It’s nearly 3pm and hasn’t gotten out of the 30s where I’m at (which is not the Woodlands).
It’s crazy how upset some of y’all get over a missed forecast on a little regional weather blog. With all the Karen-ing going on here I’m surprised nobody’s asked to see Eric’s manager.
For me, it’s quite amazing that nearly every forecast (not throwing shade here) I saw missed the mark by a dozen degrees or more. Mid-to-upper 40s (high of 48 still showing on my weatherbug) and it barely peeked above freezing when it wasn’t supposed to get close to freezing overnight. Just hope my plants and pipes are okay when I get home since I didn’t get the heads up last night and thought it would warm quickly through the morning.
Today’s forecast bust kind of reaffirms my skepticism of long term climate models. If we can’t get the weather forecast correct a few hours in advance how can we put much faith in the long term models decades into the future?
It’s not unusual for a winter forecast for a norther to come in colder than expected… The flatline temp at 32+/- since 8 AM is remarkable for sure.
(Disclosure: I have no training in meteorological matters. Just an anxiety ridden observer.)
I’m guessing the lack of rise in today’s temp has been due to the cloud cover that has not burned off. We have been hovering around 32 all day here in The Heights. Now I’m hoping the cloud cover and breeze stays throughout the night as I think that keeps temps from dropping too low. Correct?
It has never gotten above 36 degrees here in Baytown or you still only forecasting a light freeze for us tonight?
Still only 35 degrees at my house. Something tells me it’s probably not going to get up to the upper mid 40s today 🤔