We do not relish the changing Thanksgiving forecast for Houston

Houston temperatures have steadily been on an upswing for the last 10 days, climbing from the 40s for three days, into the 60s, the 70s, and finally on Wednesday reaching 80 degrees at Bush Intercontinental Airport. Despite the warming trend, temperatures this month are still running nearly 8 degrees below normal for November. We’ll have another warm day, plus some of Friday, before a decently strong front arrives to bring chilly weather back.

Thursday

Conditions today should be similar to Wednesday, albeit with more clouds and a little wind. Even with mostly gray skies, temperatures today should push into the upper 70s to possibly 80 degrees with plenty of humidity. Some scattered, mostly light showers may move through the region today from the southwest, but any heavier rain should wait until Friday’s front. Low temperatures tonight may not fall below 70 for some parts of the metro area.

Friday

The first half of Friday will keep the warm, humid trend going ahead of the cold front. This should arrive in northwest Harris County some time around noon or shortly after, and push through the metro area before sunset. Rain accumulations look to be modest, with one-quarter to one-half inch west of Interstate 45, and perhaps a little more than one-half inch to the east. In any case, we should see gradually clearing skies on Friday night as temperatures fall to around 50 degrees for most of Houston.

Saturday and Sunday

As we’ve been discussing for awhile, this will be a beautiful fall weekend. Look for sunny skies, highs in the 60s, and lows in the 50s. Our string of mostly great weekends this fall continues.

Monday

Warmer, as the onshore flow returns, but this should be a pretty nice start to Thanksgiving week with sunny skies and highs in the 70s.

Thanksgiving week

For a few days we’ve been talking about the timing of the cold front during Thanksgiving week. Well, a front is still coming to Texas by around Tuesday or so, but now some forecast models show it stalling out over our region and dissipating. Let’s be clear: If the front doesn’t make it or dies over Houston, we could be looking at conditions on Thanksgiving similar to the weather today. There’s still plenty of time for the modeling to change, but right now things are trending warmer, with a side dish of rain chances, for turkey day.

Fundraiser

With that in mind, perhaps it’s better to buy a t-shirt rather than a sweatshirt during our annual fundraiser, which is ongoing through the end of this month. Thank you to everyone for your generous support.