HOUSTON – Heading out for the holiday weekend? You may encounter some wet weather this weekend.
An upper-level low will move through the Southern Plains, and create a stormy pattern, especially for Texas. This will set up portions of Texas and the US for a multi-day severe weather threat.
The best day to start your travels, locally, will be on Good Friday. We’ll be hot, but it’ll be the last day that we are rain-free before the system arrives to SE Texas.
If you have to travel north, be aware that you may see some messy weather. Severe storms are possible Friday from north Texas to the upper Midwest.
Saturday:
For Houston, low rain chances are expected Saturday afternoon. Most of the activity stays to our north and west.
Here’s the thing: We’re still seeing a lot of uncertainty in terms of timing and coverage/intensity of storms even just a couple of days out.
Notice the difference between the models below, the American model vs European model.
At this point, we’re expecting the potential for strong storms to fire up out west anytime during the morning hours, and again during the late evening hours as the cold front treks to the southeast.
This has prompted the Storm Prediction Center to include most of north Texas down through the Hill Country in a level 2 out of 5 slight risk for severe weather on Saturday.
Sunday:
Sunday is Houston’s biggest chance of rain this Easter weekend. As the system moves closer to SE Texas on Sunday, we’ll have plenty of moisture and instability in the atmosphere to work with to allow showers and storms to fire off ahead of the approaching cold front.
However, we’re seeing the same thing for Sunday that we are for Saturday: the uncertainty in timing and coverage.
Depending on how fast the front moves, will determine when we see that chance for rain.
Sunday evening into overnight Monday looks to be the best chance to see more wet weather here in the Houston area.
The severe threat shifts into our neck of the woods, stretching into our northeastern communities, out to east Texas and the Mid-South, as the cold front continues slowly moving to the east-southeast.