Houston days, and nights, have been extremely warm

Good morning. Do you remember the brutal summer of 2011? If not, that was the warmest summer on record in Houston—high temperatures failed to reach 100 degrees on exactly one day in August of that year. Most of us who lived through it will probably never forget it.

Well, during the last week Houston has had warm nights that rival the summer of 2011. Matt found that the week ending Saturday morning capped off the warmest 7-day stretch of minimum temperatures on record in the city. For the last 7 days low temperatures have averaged 80.7°. The previous record is 80.6° set in 2011.

That gives you some sense of the magnitude of heat we experienced last week, and which will continue this week. To that end we wanted to remind you that today through Wednesday is the very last chance to enter phase 1 of Reliant’s sweepstakes to win a free AC System. Please visit here to enter for your chance to win. Good luck!

Monday

By now you know the drill as high pressure dominates our region’s weather. Highs today will again be in the upper 90s, with partly sunny skies in the morning giving way to mostly sunny skies during the afternoon. Winds will be light out of the southwest. Overnight lows ill provide scant relief from this weather, possibly not dropping below 80 degrees.

Tuesday and Wednesday

More of the same, with hot, sunny, days and muggy nights. Breezy evenings may help a little bit if you’re out for a walk.

Thursday and Friday

Toward the end of this week we expect high pressure to begin to back off somewhat—but not too much, and not right away. This may drop daytime and nighttime temperatures by a couple of degrees, but it would be disingenuous for to suggest it will bring any significant change to our weather. A very, very slight chance of rain returns Friday.

Saturday and Sunday

Our weather this weekend will depend on whether the aforementioned ridge of high pressure weakens further, or clings on. For now we’ll bet on the “clinging on for dear life” scenario, which means the weekend will probably see mostly sunny weather, highs in the mid- to upper-90s, and rain chances on the order of 20 percent per day.

Next week

If you’re wondering when this heat wave will finally break, it does look like next week will bring a pattern change, with more clouds, better rain chances, and highs dropping into the 90 to 95 degree range. We can hope, right?