Rainfall has returned
HOUSTON – After 35 days of dry weather, we finally had rainfall in Southeast Texas! We have a lot of moisture in our atmosphere (thanks SE winds) so when it rains, it POURS! Check out some videos of the rainfall here.
LIVE RADAR: Storms, lightning hitting Houston area on Halloween, how long will it keep the ghosts, goblins away?
We saw over a quarter inch of rainfall on Wednesday, which means we are no longer the driest October.
In fact, we’re no longer in the top 10 driest Octobers on record.
Halloween Forecast:
A cold front will move across the state on Thursday and depending on when you head out with the kiddos for tricks and treats, you may see some downpours or completely dry!
RELATED: Will it be wet for trick-or-treating?
Rain chances will move into SE Texas from the Northwest as the front moves in. We could see some showers ahead of the cold front starting Thursday morning.
MORE: Dangers of driving in the rain as scattered storms return after mostly dry October
You can see the heavier storms on this computer model image north of the Houston area. This is where the cold front should be situated around 7 a.m. Thursday morning.
By midday Thursday, the front should be approaching the immediate Houston area, accompanied by a broken line of showers and thunderstorms. We could see some very heavy rainfall in some of these storms. The severe threat looks to be very low right now, but there is an outside chance of some gusty winds and some lightning.
By 8 p.m., the models want to push a lot of the remaining storms off to the north and west of the Houston area. Even in areas where it’s not actively raining, streets may be wet. Wet streets would lead to muddy costumes, so if you have a dragging tail or cape with the costume, I’d recommend wearing lifts or hemming the bottom so it does not touch the ground.
By 9 pm, the storms have cleared up for the most part. A few areas to the west of i-45 might still see a passing shower or two.
Nothing looks to be a washout at this time, but earlier that you and the kiddos go out, you’ll have a higher chance to see some spotty showers. By sunset, a lot of the showers will be pushing towards the coast with the front.
It looks like the showers taper off as the night wears on. This means late night trick-or-treaters will have a higher chance of staying dry.
Tracking the Tropics:
After a quiet stretch in the tropics, there is an area of broad counterclockwise rotation in the southwest Caribbean Sea that has a 40% chance of developing over the next 7 days. Long range data does have this moving north. We’ll keep you posted if there are impacts to the United States. Hurricane season runs through November 30th.
Time Change:
Don’t forget daylight saving time ends this weekend! Most devices will automatically change this for you, but most ovens, microwaves, old cars, and wall clocks will need to be set back an hour before bed on Saturday! This is because 2AM becomes 1AM on Sunday morning, which means we actually get an extra hour of sleep. This is also a good time to change the batteries on your smoke and CO2 alarms.
This extra hour of sleep means big changes for our sunrise and sunset. Early risers typically love this time change because our sunrise is in the 6AM hour starting Sunday. Night owls often do not like the time change as our sunset will also be an hour earlier at 5:32PM.
10-day Forecast:
We have two cold fronts on our 10-day forecast. The first cold front will bring our rain chances for Halloween and lower temperatures for the upcoming weekend.
The second cold front is more uncertain but could potentially be the big fall front we’ve been waiting on. The stronger cold front looks to move in towards the middle of next week dropping highs to the 70s and lows to the 50s.
