Tropical system lashes Texas coast, but Houston misses most of the action – Space City Weather

In short: A tropical system is bringing heavy rain and strong winds to coastal Texas this morning, but most of this activity is south of Houston. We’ll see the potential for widespread showers on Wednesday before lesser chances of rain through the weekend. Houston skies will become partly sunny starting Thursday, with plenty of sunshine Saturday and Sunday.

Potential tropical cyclone 1

A tropical system in the southern Gulf of Mexico is on the verge of becoming a tropical depression, but it is slow to turn toward Mexico’s east coast. It is expected to move inland by Thursday. Whether it develops or not, the effects for Texas are being felt: high winds and seas, with a risk of heavy precipitation along much of the coast, but especially not in the Houston area.

The light to moderate rain the city is experiencing this morning is essentially the main cause of the tropical humidity. Yes that’s it. Over the preceding days, we were careful to balance expectations for this storm by suggesting that it was possible for the heavy rains to spread south of Houston, which ultimately did. But there is no doubt that our modeling poorly accounted for flood risk in the Houston metro area. (Speaking of modeling, tomorrow I will have a brief analysis of the performance of AI models on this tropical system).

Ultimately, there is no longer a serious risk of flooding in the greater Houston metropolitan area. South of the city, including areas such as southern Brazoria County, Bay City and down to Matagorda Bay, rainfall totals are significantly higher and there is a risk of flooding today additional. These southern areas are also exposed to higher tides and coastal flooding, as well as wind gusts of up to 40 mph.

Wednesday

The Houston area is expected to see scattered, light to moderate showers throughout the June 19 holiday morning. It is possible that an additional “band” of showers will develop over Houston this afternoon or evening. However, I don’t expect these rains to cause serious flooding problems. Most of these are untimely showers.

Winds associated with the tropical system in the southern Gulf are expected to peak this afternoon over the Houston metro area, with gusts of 25 to 30 mph possible inland, and up to 40 mph along the coastline, including Galveston Island. With high tides, coastal flooding in low-lying areas is likely today, as well as Thursday morning. Skies are expected to be mostly cloudy today, limiting high temperatures to the 80s.

THURSDAY

As the tropical system expands toward Mexico, it will cease to be a threat in terms of precipitation. As a result, we will likely only see scattered showers on Thursday with lesser accumulations. Skies will be partly sunny with highs around 90 degrees.

Friday

Skies will be mostly sunny Friday, with highs near 90 degrees. There will be a chance of showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon, but this is only about 30 percent likely.

Saturday and Sunday

The weekend is expected to bring sunny weather with highs in the 90s. Several readers have wondered about a second tropical system, which is expected to develop in the southern Gulf of Mexico this weekend (see image at the top of this article). At this time, I don’t expect this to have a significant impact on the weather in Houston, although it could cause scattered showers and thunderstorms in coastal areas, i.e. along and south of Interstate 10 this weekend. We’ll keep an eye on it, but for now, it’s not something to worry too much about.

Next week

Most of next week is expected to be partly to mostly sunny, with highs in the low to mid 90s. We may also see some afternoon showers driven by the sea breeze. Overall, the pattern seems pretty typical for late June as we head into the heart of summer.