Your holiday weekend forecast: A wet (but not too wet) mess

Houston has a messy forecast ahead so lets dive right in.

TODAY and THANKSGIVING

Warm air is now moving into the Houston area off the Gulf of Mexico, and we’ll see a couple of warm, gray days with highs in the upper 70s and muggy overnight lows only falling to around 70 degrees. Light rain will also be possible on Thanksgiving, although probably not more than a tenth of an inch of rain or two, and most likely during the afternoon or evening hours.

FRIDAY, SATURDAY and SUNDAY

Here’s where the mess begins. Over in the Pacific Ocean Hurricane Sandra is expected to move north into Mexico, and then toward the Big Bend area of Texas. This will pump a lot of moisture into the state and create conditions favorable for heavy rains.

But when you look at the rain accumulation totals through the weekend they appear to be highest over central, and especially northern Texas.

Houston, on the other hand, is right on the line that divides areas of heavier rain from very little rain. Why is this? It’s because a high pressure ridge is sitting just to the east of the metro area, and this will limit rising air and rain showers.

The net effect of this is that areas northwest of the Houston metro area have a chance at seeing some fairly heavy rain, but most of the region is likely to only see 1 to 2 inches of rain during the Friday through Sunday period. Expect gray days, with intermittent light to moderate rain during this time. Flooding should not be an issue in Houston.

Another factor in this weekend’s weather will come from a cold front slowly sagging down through Texas. It now appears this front will push through the Houston area sometime on Saturday, leading to cooler temperatures, after the very warm November weather for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. This means most areas may only see highs in the upper 60s on Saturday and Sunday, with lows in the 50s.

NEXT WEEK

Right now it appears that cooler temperatures and gray skies will prevail for much of next week.