A cool front is on schedule for later today, with a slight chance of storms

In brief: Houston will see another warm and humid day, but there will be a twist this afternoon as a broken line of showers and thunderstorms pushes through the area from northwest to southeast. Drier air will follow overnight, leading to sunny days with lower humidity. It’s a weak front, but in September, who’s complaining?

Wednesday

Most of the area will be warm and humid again today, with high temperatures in the low-90s. Skies will be mostly sunny this morning, but then we should see some clouds building up this afternoon with increasing levels of moisture in the atmosphere. By later this afternoon we should see a broken line of showers, perhaps with a few embedded thunderstorms, moving from northwest to southeast across the area. This line should reach from Sugar Land to downtown Houston to Kingwood by around 4 to 6 pm, and push down to the coast by around 7 to 9 pm.

As it nears the coast, this boundary should gradually run into more moisture, and this could help fill in the gaps. There is a slight threat of some briefly damaging winds in any of the stronger thunderstorms that develop. Unfortunately, I don’t think the frontal passage is going to bring widespread, drenching rains, which the area needs after a fairly dry September. Some locations may pick up 0.5 inch of rain, but most of the region, and especially areas inland of Interstate 10, are likely to see little to no rain. Lows tonight will drop to around 70 degrees.

Thursday and Friday

Drier air starts to filter in overnight, and we’ll see a couple of slightly cooler days. High temperatures on Thursday and Friday will reach the upper-80s, with lots of sunshine. Thursday may be a bit gusty in terms of northerly winds, but these will settle down somewhat by Thursday night. Lows, for the most part, will reach the upper 60s in the Houston area and drop down a little further outside of the city and away from the coast. Mornings and evenings will feel lovely.

Saturday and Sunday

Sunny weather continues, with daytime highs in the low 90s and nighttime lows around 70 degrees. The humidity will recover some, but not get back to really sticky dewpoints. So again, mornings and evenings will be fairly pleasant outside.

Next week

Expect more sunshine and highs in the low-90s. There is some support for a front arriving by Thursday or Friday of next week, but it is far from universal in the weather model ensembles. What does seem clear is that, after today, rain chances are very low for awhile for our area. That’s one reason why I’m hoping for today’s showers to overperform expectations.

Tropics

Now entering the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Helene is approaching hurricane strength with 70-mph sustained winds. It is expected to become a powerful Category 3 hurricane before striking the northwest Florida coast on Thursday evening. This storm will have widespread, myriad effects. We’ll have continuing coverage today on The Eyewall.