SE TX/SW LA weather: Much cooler and WET after Tuesday

[southerngale]

I added about 3/4 of an inch yesterday. For the first time in a few months, there's actually some standing water in some of the ditches. Not a lot, but the recent rains have certainly helped!

Radar doesn't currently look very promising, but I know some of y'all have missed out on many of the showers recently... I hope some more develops soon and gets to those who need it most.

[jasons2k]

I'm not optimistic about the West Texas stuff, too far west.

Our best bet is for something to fire locally along the trough to our immediate north and/or seabreeze convection.

Seabreeze is on the march. Little pops here and there on radar to the north but nothing is holding together just yet. At least it's 3:30 and not 8:30. We still have time for something to get going. I'm still cautiously optimistic.

[Flyinman]

Yep, starting to see quite a bit redevelop to the North East as well. I am also glad this is happening earlier in the day. I guess if nothing today, we will have to wait until next week. Supposedly a decent chance then as well. On the positive side, at least we have some cloud cover and not clear blue skies baking us all.

[Ptarmigan]

I notice there are some thunderstorms north of Houston. I wonder more will develop later today.

[srainhoutx]

Appears we have a suface boundry along the Montgomery/Harris County line and the sea breeze slowly moving NW. Could be our focal point for evening storms...

[vbhoutex]

Appears we have a suface boundry along the Montgomery/Harris County line and the sea breeze slowly moving NW. Could be our focal point for evening storms...

I hope! I hope! *vb falls over as he crosses too many appendages*

[Ptarmigan]

Appears we have a suface boundry along the Montgomery/Harris County line and the sea breeze slowly moving NW. Could be our focal point for evening storms...

Let's hope for that.

[Flyinman]

I've had a few showers this evening and looks like more on the way..Yeehaw!!

[Yankeegirl]

its lightening to my east and to my west.... nothing here...

[srainhoutx]

Nice shower on the NW side tonight. My yard is greatful.

[vbhoutex]

Nice shower on the NW side tonight. My yard is greatful.

I'm getting the lightning. Send the rain on South please!

edit: Thanks Steve!! It is pouring now!!!
edit again: According to Ch 13 street level radar it is raining itself out right over my house and the rain has let up quite a bit now.

[srainhoutx]

Nice shower on the NW side tonight. My yard is greatful.

I'm getting the lightning. Send the rain on South please!

edit: Thanks Steve!! It is pouring now!!!
edit again: According to Ch 13 street level radar it is raining itself out right over my house and the rain has let up quite a bit now.

Perfect thunderstorm, David. Not too heavy and lots of lightning. Good sleeping weather.

[vbhoutex]

Nice shower on the NW side tonight. My yard is greatful.

I'm getting the lightning. Send the rain on South please!

edit: Thanks Steve!! It is pouring now!!!
edit again: According to Ch 13 street level radar it is raining itself out right over my house and the rain has let up quite a bit now.

Perfect thunderstorm, David. Not too heavy and lots of lightning. Good sleeping weather.

Most definitely. Still some good lightning around, but the rain has stopped. 0.77" here. The lawn is singing a song!

[jasons2k]

Not a drop here......I missed it, literally, by a mile. But I'm glad to see most of you got some much needed rain.

[SaskatchewanScreamer]

I hope you folks are putting out feeders and water for the birds (from reading how dry it is down there your yard would be like an African watering hole to the local wildlife).

Glad to read some of you are getting rain (for both peeps and the critters sake).

[southerngale]

I had a short shower earlier in the afternoon, then a hefty thunderstorm late afternoon/early evening. The 1st one was just a little rain, but the 2nd one brought heavy rain and lots of thunder and lightning. It poured for a little while. I checked the rain gauge afterwards... almost to the 1" mark.

hmmm, I really need to get my weather station installed. I bought it several years ago, but kept putting off installation, knowing I'd be moving soon. It wasn't as soon as I had anticipated, but I finally moved and need to get that thing put up! It's probably obsolete by now, though.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Firing up the sprinkler did the trick, rain, with very infrequent lightning, about 20 minutes worth at a good clip, followed about 15 minutes after I started thr sprinkler.


Sprinkler is on hiatus again until the weekend.

[SETXWXLADY]

Oh Boy. I think things are gonna change. Yikes!

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HOUSTON/GALVESTON TX
340 AM CDT THU JUL 23 2009

THE FORECAST FOR EARLY NEXT WEEK REMAINS UP IN THE AIR. WHILE THE
GFS/ECMWF AGREE IN PRINCIPLE THAT THERE WILL BE A MEAN LONG WAVE
TROUGH OVER THE CENTRAL AND EASTERN U.S. WITH THE RIDGE OVER THE
DESERT SW...OVERALL DETAILS IN THE FORECAST ARE QUITE DIFFERENT.
IN SHORT...IF THE ECMWF VERIFIES...YOU NEED TO DUST OFF YOUR
FLOOD INSURANCE POLICY BECAUSE YOU WILL NEED IT WEDNESDAY. THE
GFS IS LESS AGGRESSIVE WITH PRECIP BUT BOTH MODELS HAVE SOME SORT
OF SHORTWAVE OVER THE AREA TUE/WED. PATTERN SUGGESTS KEEPING SOME
LOW CHANCE POPS IN THE FORECAST SO A CONSERVATIVE 30/40 POPS LOOK
REASONABLE GIVEN THE UNCERTAINTY IN THE DETAILS BETWEEN MODEL
FORECASTS. TEMPERATURES WILL AGAIN RUN A DEGREE OR TWO WARMER
THAN GFS GUIDANCE FOR THE EXTENDED FORECAST.

[srainhoutx]

Morning e-mail from Jeff Lindner...

Last day for scattered afternoon/evening thunderstorms before return of dry and hot weather.

While the last week has offered some relief to the now exceptional drought across much of SE and S TX…rainfall deficits remain in the 6-15 inch range across much of the region and 20-30 inches across central TX and the coastal bend. The rains have been more scattered with an inch here one day and there the next. While this has helped the grass fire danger…it has only slightly improved the underlying drought impacts. Also of note is how warm the overnight lows have been this July. So far 9 days have had overnight lows of 80 or above at IAH and the average July temperature so far of 87.7 is the warmest monthly average ever recorded for any month of the year…including August. Even with the rains…we continue to reach 95-98 each afternoon. College Station has had high temperatures at or above 100 for 18 days in July and Sugar Land 12 days.

Atypical mid July pattern more common in the middle of winter will continue through early next week…however moist trough axis overhead will shift eastward later today taking the moisture off to the east and allowing subsidence to build. We should easily push back into the low 100’s Friday-Sunday as an extension of the upper ridge builds over the area. Rain chances today around 40% will drop to near 10% Friday-Sunday and be confined to the seabreeze/baybreeze.

Things get interesting by the early-mid part of next week as very deep mid July trough over the eastern US retrogrades westward into TX. Ahead of a building Bermuda ridge over the western Atlantic. Building ridge will pump tropical moisture NW from the Caribbean Sea with PWS rising from 1.3 inches on Saturday to over 2.0 inches by Tuesday. Expect the seabreeze to become very active Tuesday under deep southerly flow and moisture. Of greater concern is the deep trough axis pushing westward into TX. ECMWF is extremely wet and according to this model the drought would end with a big bang with widespread significant rainfall. The GFS is more tame in its projection still showing a similar pattern, but lighter QPF. Given PWS getting over and possibly well over 2.0 inches does raise the red flag for the potential for excessive rainfall. Pattern almost looks similar to July 2007 where record flooding developed across central Texas…..

[jasons2k]

Amazing...shows how quickly things can change...just a couple of weeks ago there was a chorus of "no relief until October". Within days, we had an extended wet pattern and it looks like next week we'll have round 2. I guess that's the equivalent of Ed turning on his sprinkler but on the large scale