There are a few (very slight) hints of fall in the forecast

Space City Weather
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Originally published at: There are a few (very slight) hints of fall in the forecast – Space City Weather

In brief: In today’s post we discuss the hints of forthcoming fall weather in our forecast, and also discuss the possibility of additional weather balloons in Texas. For our forecast, Monday looks to be quite hot, but with lower humidity After today there will be a smattering of rain chances all week, with the weekend looking cooler after a weak front (probably) arrives.

Signs of fall and weather balloons

I wanted to hit on a couple of notes this morning. First up is the realization that this is the final week of August, and a period when we often see high temperatures in the 100s in Houston. For this week Monday, especially, looks to see hot weather. But one of the reasons for this is that we are seeing an influx of drier air, which is a harbinger of stronger fronts that will be possible in a few weeks’ time. This afternoon we may see dewpoints drop into the upper 50s in Houston, and while this is not super dry, it is significantly less humid than normal for late summer. This drier air will allow afternoon highs to spike into the upper 90s. Additionally, we have the prospect of another weak front sagging into Houston this coming weekend. Now these August fronts don’t carry much oomph, but they pave the way for the possibility of more substantial fronts in September. Also, we might get some lows in the lower 70s out of it, possibly even upper 60s for far inland areas. So yes, it’s still summer out. But if I squint, I can see change on the horizon.

I also want to mention an editorial that appeared in the Houston Chronicle last week regarding the devastating Central Texas flooding in early July. The editorial correctly notes a paucity of weather balloon soundings over Texas (something we’ve often talked about here), and suggests that as part of their ongoing special session, Texas lawmakers consider creating a network of weather stations to better monitor conditions across the state, including setting up additional weather balloon launches on a daily basis. As a forecaster, I can say that this would definitely improve our ability to predict the most dynamic and impactful flooding events such as that which occurred near Kerrville.

Monday

As noted above, we are seeing an influx of drier air today. This should lead to a hot, mostly sunny day for the region. Expect highs in the mid- to upper-90s with a few far inland areas possibly toying with 100-degree weather. Overall humidity should be lower, however. So if you’re one of those “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity people,” today is your day to shine. Rain chances are near zero. Lows tonight will drop into the upper 70s.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday

A pattern change will see slightly more unsettled weather move into the area for the mid-week time frame. Overall rain chances will be on the order of 30 to 40 percent daily, and for the most part accumulations should slight, on the order of a tenth of an inch of rain, or two. A slight increase in cloud cover should help moderate temperatures a bit. Highs should be in the mid-90s for most locations. The dry air will be long gone, so expect ample humidity. Lows will drop into the upper 70s for most.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

A weak front will approach the area on Friday, and likely push into the metro area on Saturday. The net impact of this should be to drive up rain rain chances to about 50 percent daily. Again, we are not looking at anything too special regarding accumulations, probably just tenths of an inch for the most part. But there could be a few stronger showers that bring a total of 1 inch or more to some areas near the coast by the end of the weekend. Highs on Friday should reach the mid-90s before falling to around 90 degrees this weekend with a few more clouds and slightly cooler air. Lows this weekend could drop into the low to mid-70s. Again, this is not chilly by any means, but a nice harbinger of what’s to come this fall.

Next week

The overall pattern next week should see continued highs mostly in the low- to mid-90s, with decent reain chances. Knock on wood, but I’m not seeing any sign of the early September spike in daily highs that the region sometime experiences.

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Good morning. Can y’all look into why this blog is not appearing on the website’s front page? This has been an on and off issue for a while. Thanks!

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SCW announcing that there’s only 6 more weeks of blistering heat is my groundhog day

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I appreciate the mention of fall. Considering that history shows the realistic potential for our first true fall cold front during the timeframe of first week in September to first week in October, what is the long range forecast for the next two to three weeks?

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Yep, I’ve been troubleshooting on and off for weeks and it’s proving an annoying problem to lick. The updated pages are there, but one of the components in the cache layer is really, really, really, really, really trying as hard as it can to hold onto stale stuff and is ignoring the signals it should be getting to dump stuff out. I’m hopeful a solution is near, but unfortunately I can only work on it when I have free time from my actual day job :frowning:

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Hi, the post aren’t loading on the main page. I receive emails on new post but don’t find them on main page. I also received an email notification on Friday of an old post from weeks ago. If you can look into it please.

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I’ve learned to never get exited about fall in late August because we tend to go through bouts of August type heat through most of September regardless. September of 2005, 2011, 2016, 2019, and 2023 definitely stand out when it comes to late season heat.

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No clue about the old email notification, but yes, I’m aware of the homepage showing cached versions of old posts. Often (but not always!) it’s your browser holding onto old versions of the homepage; you can see if this is the case by clearing your cache and refreshing, or by doing a hard refresh to force your browser to request a new un-cached version of the homepage.

However, there’s clearly something more going on that’s causing issues. I’ve just deployed some fixes that might improve things over the next day or so. Apologies for the problems!

edited to add — the August 26 SCW post looks like it’s not exhibiting any of the problem behavior, so fingers crossed that the fixes were successful :crossed_fingers:If things continue to look good on August 27, I’ll do a root-cause analysis in Forum Feedback on what I fixed :+1:

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@Joseph And 2000. The first time we reached 109°F was September 2000.

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I can never understand why it is necessary to constantly refer to how the weather ‘once was’. Isn’t this a ‘forecast’ site, not a backcast one? It’s as if the poster wants to say: ‘Look at me, I know it all’.

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Facts! But luckily that same month we had a good cool front dropped our highsinto the mid 70s on the 25th with a record low of 49 on the 26th. Gotta love the bi polar weather here :rofl:

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It’s because looking back into the past can sometimes be a decent way to make predictions about the future. We humans are pattern recognizing creatures and the while the weather tends to be chaotic and unpredictable, we can still gather enough data from the past to make reliable guesses about what the near future holds.

For example, we can confidently expect that most of September will be hot and muggy, however some years we get a cool front in early or mid September. That is the exception though not the rule. So it’s not unreasonable for one to just expect that it’s going to be hot and muggy for atleast 3/4s of any given September. I’ not sure what the problem is with it?

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