Discussion
WTOC-TV
NASA
ECMWF
Yes, I know that you are miserable. When you step outside to water the lawn and garden, it feels like a blast furnace. The time it takes to pump gas is punishing. Even walking the dog at 5:30 AM can be torture. Over and over, you are probably asking yourself, "IS THERE ANY HOPE IN SIGHT?"
Truthfully, yes, perhaps temperatures will abandon their semi-constant perch near 100 degrees. But it is going to take about 72 hours just to drop daytime readings to the lower 90s (F). A strong disturbance and frontal structure is clearly seen on satellite images, ripping through the Midwest. The cold front associated with this system is forecast to approach the Bayou City on Thursday, possibly offering up the chance for a thunderstorm. This wind shift line will slow and then stall as it passes just to our south on Friday night. While I suspect that precipitation will be scattered, some of the convection may be quite intense. And odds are, that chance for rainfall (and with it lower daytime highs) will be with us through the coming weekend. Computer models suggest that the core of the heat ridge will stay over the Intermountain Region for a while, scorching cities like Phoenix AZ, Las Vegas NV, and even Los Angeles CA. Houston, meanwhile could actually pull off a couple of days where readings stay below normal!
NOAA/NCEP
Plymouth State University Weather Server
Dundee University
In time, the heat ridge that has been our nemesis this summer may rebuild. But the power of the trough will be such that cooler temperatures will probably linger into Monday morning. Thunderstorms seem a good bet for the weekend, developing both from the north and west (MCS type) and around the Gulf Coast (diurnal pulse convection). I would not be surprised to see rainfall amounts up to two inches in spots (see the GFS QPF depiction above). And it is even a possibility that, given the very moist and unstable atmosphere about the nearby front, that a strong to severe cumulonimbus cell could develop in and around Houston on Saturday and Sunday.
The tropics still look very quiet from a Houston point of view. The hot, dusty Saharan air mass covering the eastern Atlantic Ocean has just about destroyed what looked to be a powerful convective circulation southwest of the Cape Verde Islands. There is another strong ITCZ impulse that has just exited the African coastline, but this impulse has little chance to affect the U.S. or nearby islands. If the dry desert-born air does not destroy the wave, the array of shearing southwest flow aloft that covers the Caribbean Sea and Greater Antilles surely will do the job. The only real threat for tropical cyclone development now lies in two scenarios: a thunderstorm vortex develops from a diffuse cold front over the Gulf of Mexico (the strongest possibility over the next three weeks), or a disturbance from the equatorial Pacific Ocean crosses southern Mexico or Central America into the Bay of Campeche or the Caribbean Sea (a long shot at this point).
The Forecast
.jpg)
WEATHERAmerica (Google Map, Image From NOAA)
Wednesday: Hazy sunshine, very hot and humid. Highs 97 San Leon to 101 Santa Fe
Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy, warm, very humid. Lows 77 Romayor to 81 Rosharon
Thursday: Partly sunny, hot, very humid with isolated showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs 96 Jersey Village to 100 Iowa Colony
Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, warm, very humid. Lows 76 High Island to 80 Fallets Island
Friday: Variable cloudiness, hot and very humid. Showers and thunderstorms are likely in the afternoon. Highs 93 Baytown to 97 Bay City
Extended Outlook
Saturday: Mostly cloudy, not as hot but very humid. Showers and thunderstorms likely, possibly heavy. High 92, Low 76
Sunday: Mostly cloudy, warm and very humid. Showers and thunderstorms likely, possibly heavy. High 90, Low 75
Monday: Partly cloudy, hot, very humid. A shower or thunderstorm is possible late day. High 95, Low 74
Comments