Boring weather continues for August, and that's just fine. In fact, it's ideal

Originally published at: Boring weather continues for August, and that’s just fine. In fact, it’s ideal – Space City Weather

In brief: Today’s post explains why boring and calm weather in August is the perfect ideal for Houston. This will never be a month for nice weather. But it is often a month for nasty weather. Fortunately, this year, we’re not seeing that. (So far).

August doldrums

A lot of terrible, awful, no good weather can happen in August along the upper Texas coast. Historically this is when we have seen our most terrible heat. I think about the summer of 2023, when the average daily high temperature for August was 103 degrees. This is the month when we often seen our most entrenched high pressure systems and deepest droughts. Conversely, August and September are when the region is most vulnerable to powerful hurricanes. So we can see not just droughts but flooding rains. We often go from drought to flash flooding in a matter of minutes due to the nature of tropical rainfall. Fun times.

So when I look ahead to our forecast over the next 10 days and see highs generally in the low- to mid-90s, with enough of a splash of rain—but not too much, mind you—to keep the drought at bay, I’m happy. It may be boring to forecast. It may mean no one is reading about, or really cares about the weather. But boring weather in August beats almost any conceivable alternative. So I say, with pride, that today’s forecast post is boring.

Thursday and Friday

The end of the work week will bring some of our warmest weather. Daytime highs will push into the mid- to upper-90s (for inland areas), with mostly sunny skies. We will see some showers offshore during the morning hours, and I expect these to develop over land later this morning and during the afternoon with daytime heating. Generally I expect about 10 percent of the region to see moderate to heavy rains, another 20 percent or so to see light rain, and then the rest of us nothing. So these will be very much hit or miss rains. Winds will be light, generally from the southeast. Overnight lows are very warm and muggy.

Saturday and Sunday

As the high pressure system over the Southwestern United States retreats a little bit this weekend, we will see slightly increased rain chances. Overall daily coverage will be about 40 percent, and again these should be very much hit or miss showers, with a few isolated pockets of heavy rain, and most areas seeing much less. A few more clouds should help limit high temperatures this weekend to the low- to mid-90s. Which, for the deepest dog days of summer, is not half bad.

Next week

This pattern of boring weather: highs generally in the mid-90s, low-end daily rain chances, and plenty of humidity, should continue for the majority of next week. It’s not glamorous, but for me in August, in Houston, every day is one of survive and advance toward fall. And we’re getting there folks.

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I’ll gladly take this boring August weather!

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Low to mid 90s. In August. :joy: Egads! We will all die from hypothermia.:joy:

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I’d hardly call over two inches of rain in 45 minutes and an over one hour drive home yesterday boring!

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It does seem almost, kind of, sort of pleasant during the evenings.

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I was thinking about all the drivers yesterday. I’m retired and checked out the radar. I got some heavy rain lots of thunder and lightning at my house.

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The GFS & Euro keep spinning cat 4s in the Gulf by the 19/20th of Aug - this is becoming concerning bc of the consistency - can you address this?

(These are not small storms :eyes:)

Thx

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I know today’s post celebrates the “boring August ideal,” and I’m all for that—Houston deserves the break.

But I’m watching the models, and for those worried about a “boring August”……

GFS had dropped this on the 06Z run thank God, but now the 00Z Euro has picked it up and apparently by Hr. 360 has it pointed in the same direction—ours! Now, why would GFS drop that and ECMWF pick it up? And I’ll keep my feelings to myself right now :scream:

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Hi Sara, we’ve been watching this. It’s important to remember that we are talking about forecasts 12 to 15 days from now, and the models are going to be throwing all kinds of solutions out there. I would not worry about any of these specific scenarios or threats beyond the reality that yes, the Atlantic tropics are heating up.

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You lost me at Hour 360. That is 16 days from now and really has no basis in reality. Yes, the tropics are heating up. No, there aren’t any specific threats to the Gulf right now.

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This period of steady doldrums I agree is not a bad thing. :thinking:

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I hate to sound like an old fart but y’all should’ve been here in 1980. I spent the summer working in a metal barn in Pasadena - without a/c. I married a farmer’s daughter who spent that summer loading cotton bales on train cars in the RGV. That summer was brutal!

“I always think boredom is to some extent the fault of the bored.”
Kate Ross,

When it comes to average daily highs over 100 with oppressive heat index numbers I am totally cool with boring.

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I was two years old :smiley: I don’t remember much, but I probably had a great time that summer!

Edited to add: Also, continued apologies to anyone whose first post gets flagged as spam by the auto-spam-checker—it’s just real sensitive to first posts from newly signed-up accounts. We’re keeping a close eye on everything it does for the next few days during this big initial sign-up rush, and one of us will immediately undo any accidental spam flagging. If you get caught and get some big scary message about it, do not worry and feel free to ignore—we’ll fix it hopefully within a few seconds!

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I sure love this August weather. Way better than what it can be, indeed.

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Survive and advance towards fall…my mantra from now until late September!!

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The warmer overnight lows don’t seem to be too common where I am in Jersey Village. I’ve had consistent lows of 73°F-76°. Not one overnight low of 80°F or above.

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The Eyewall addresses this in today’s post.

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Amen to that! Sure beats the alternative.

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Curious as to what the current drought map looks like. I am assuming it’s not nearly like the one from September 2023 but thought you were going to have posted both to show how different things are compared to last year.