So I know what you are thinking. "Oh sh**, the weather nerd is back – now what is it." I wouldn't blame you for thinking that, but this time my presence on SportsMap is a bit more benign (for now). Instead, this is the first post in what will become a regular bit on SportsMap where I hope to give you a little weather information every couple of days while you stop by to get your daily fix of Rockets drama, Texans ineptitude, or Astros baseball. My hope is that every few days I can be a source of drama-free and easily digestible weather information for you. I'm not going sit here and tell you a hurricane is coming four weeks out or that a regular thunderstorm is the apocalypse. I'm not getting paid enough (or rather at all) to make up stories like that. I hope you stick around and find what I plan to do here useful. Now with that intro out of the way lets get to the weather:
If you have paid attention to any local news over the weekend you probably heard about the possibility of some action in the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, its true, but hold your horses. I'll get there in a minute.
Lets start with the story for the next couple of days - the heat. Today, tomorrow, and Wednesday all look to be typical July days. An area of high pressure has situated itself overhead and that basically means the oven is turned up to broil. For the next 3 days skies will be mostly sunny and temperatures will climb into the upper 90's each afternoon. This is Houston, so what would the heat be without oppressive on top of it. The heat index or rather the "feels like" temperature will be between 105-110 degrees each of these days. Cooling rain showers are highly unlikely during this period but not completely impossible. If you happen to get one consider yourself lucky - maybe go buy a lottery ticket or something. If you work outside you know the drill by now, this will be one of the hottest stretches of days we have seen so far this year.
Ok, now on to the tropical update, eye on the gulf, gulf watch, gulf tracker 3000, or whatever your favorite news station calls their segment on tropical weather. Over the next few days a storm system currently over the southeast US will dive south into the Gulf near the Florida panhandle. This is where the high level of certainty ends with this feature. Over the past couple of days computer models have really struggled with what happens to this system in terms of how it develops and where it goes. The National Hurricane Center gives this system a 60% chance of developing into at least a tropical depression over the next 5 days (see image at the top of this post). Currently it does not look to be a huge concern for us as the thinking is that the system will stay east of the Houston area. It is still far enough in the future though that I can't say our chances of seeing any action from this are absolutely zero, but we have a good amount of time to watch it. I'd say that right now somewhere between New Orleans and Pensacola, Florida has the highest odds of seeing impacts from this system. No matter where it goes though it does not look to be a very strong system once it gets there. Once the forecast becomes a bit clearer you can bet I will be back to let you know.
You can find me on Twitter @stephenuzick
