Fantastic Friday before mixed results this weekend

Quick note: If you were woken up by or heard/felt an explosion this morning, you were one of many. There was indeed an explosion northwest of Houston near the intersection of Gessner and Clay Road. This is just south of 290 and east of the Beltway. As is often the case in situations like this, weather radar picked up the actual explosion or fire.

Explosion in NW Houston…radar picked up a return near the location at the same time #houwx #hounews pic.twitter.com/Sk8kqztPbo

— Jeff Lindner (@JeffLindner1) January 24, 2020

I’ve seen people as far away as Clear Lake hearing the explosion. We send our best to readers in that part of the area that may be cleaning up this morning. An unfortunate morning northwest of Houston.

On to weather, we are back into a really nice pattern today, but we do have a couple minor issues to discuss for the weekend.

Today

Friday should be a beautiful day with sun, light winds, and highs reaching into about the mid 60s.

Saturday

While I believe we will start out with sunshine, high clouds should begin moving into the region in the morning. The day will get progressively cloudier from there. Clouds thicken up in the afternoon, and at least a slight chance of light rain or some showers will begin by late afternoon. The best chance for seeing some of that rain during the daytime hours will be south of Houston, particularly from Freeport south through Matagorda Bay. Most areas north of Houston will likely remain dry during the daytime Saturday. Temperatures will warm from the mid or upper 40s in the morning to the mid 60s or so in the afternoon.

Saturday night & Sunday

From Saturday evening through Sunday morning, it will be fairly dreary across the region. Look for periods of mostly light rain and showers. A brief period of heavier rain cannot be entirely ruled out, especially along the coast. So if you placed an “X” over downtown Houston, areas to the south and east of there have the chance to see some higher rain totals. Inland from Houston, the odds drop off for seeing anything heavy.

Regardless, no serious flooding is expected, and rainfall totals should be manageable across the vast majority of the region. It will just be a fairly dreary Saturday night and Sunday.

Sunday afternoon may see some clearing, but, similar to what we saw yesterday, I have a feeling that will be stubborn to settle in across the region until very late or at night. We should still see temperatures warm into the upper 60s or so after beginning the day in the 50s.

Monday through Wednesday

Next week will start off lovely, with perhaps some patchy fog Monday morning giving way to sunshine. Clouds increase on Monday night and Tuesday ahead of a quick moving cold front that is going to bring showers or some thunderstorms at some point during the day. We will refine that timing on Monday. The region should clear out quickly on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. High temperatures should be in the 60s to around 70°, with low temperatures generally in the 50s through Wednesday.

Is winter over?

One question I have seen from readers is whether or not winter is over for us in Southeast Texas. To be clear, it’s January 24th, so we still have a month and change to go here. The reality is that the next couple weeks at least look void of any serious winter conditions.

By that I mean freeze risks or windy days where we struggle to get above 50 degrees. In the last 30 years, our latest freeze has occurred as late as March 21st (1996). Even last year we had a freeze as late as March 6th. Beyond the next couple of weeks, I don’t personally see anything that would suggest we suddenly turn really cold and wintry here into mid-February, but that does not mean it cannot happen.

So the short summary is: No, winter is not over here, but as of today, there are very few signs of any sustained cold, wintry weather through at least early or mid-February.