Weather Impact update: Strong storms heading to the Houston area

Indexed: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]All right, good Tuesday afternoon everybody. David Paul here in the KO11 weather center. I think the best way to describe the forecast for tonight, tomorrow, the next seven, even 8, nine, 10 days out is just have the umbrella handy. Understand that from time to time we're going to get out a round of rain or thunderstorms.

[00:00:21]But exact timing of any of these specific rounds is just out the window.

[00:00:27]Models are all over the place. The atmosphere is very unstable. Even the slightest little puff of a gust front could kick off a line of thunderstorms in this type of atmosphere. I'll show you where we stand with the modeling right now, but understand what I'm showing you. It's not going to be exact.

[00:00:41]Just keep that umbrella handy and expect wet weather for the next seven days and probably beyond. I'm going to show you the the long range modeling here in just a minute. The red is for a weather impact alert that goes into effect tonight. It actually starts at 8:00 tonight. There we go. 8 8:00 pm to 8 a.m. So overnight tonight into tomorrow morning's rush weather impact alert.

[00:01:02]That's when we believe we're going to get a round or two of rain and thunder coming in here. I really think the biggest severe threat other than the street ponding. Wherever the heavier rain comes down will be isolated hail and straight line winds. It doesn't look like a tornado threat. Uh on the app, just turn on notification. just leave it on because if you have to travel in this, you have to work in this, you'll get that urban small stream flood advisory and those tell you where the roads are getting high water spots on them and you can avoid it or just not go out altogether. As far as a severe threat, it is on the low end. So, this is for tonight into tomorrow morning's commute. Most of Houston, Southeast Texas in the green, that's a one on a five level threat scale. You can see that further to the west, we're in a two. What this implies is that we're going to have a cluster of strong thunderstorms in central Texas, it will rumble in from west to east and then as it's pushing into our area, it will be weakening. Kind of like what we had this morning. We had an unexpected, by the way, round of storms come in early in the morning. Most of the heavy stuff pushed offshore. We had widespread light rain, some elevated claps of thunder, and that was about it and everything settled down. But that's what we're expecting overnight tonight and tomorrow. So another one of these systems will rumble in from the west.

[00:02:18]It'll be weakening, but Brennham to Columbus to Elcampo, you're in a two out of five. That means you could uh see a little bit of chance for the straight line wind, an isolated power outage, and some hail. Okay, radar as we stand this Tuesday afternoon. And this is this is interesting actually. There's there's a lot going on here. We've got a basically a frontal boundary parked up here. And you can see the line and clusters of thunderstorms developing along that boundary. And modeling wanted to push that or at least an outflow boundary from that and push it into southeast Texas and have it just kind of work its way across the area from north to south this evening. That would be the 8:00 to midnight chance for rain and thunder.

[00:03:02]But there's something happening that could slow or disrupt that entire process. And that is there's a little mess low right here. You can see, let this go one more time. You can see right here, especially at the end, there's a bit of a counterclockwise flow here. And it's sent it's sending a boundary to the north. Can you see how that's pushing north? So, this is mezoscale. This is smallcale stuff.

[00:03:25]And models have a really hard time grasping onto this really small scale uh dynamical stuff. And that's why one of the reasons why when I tell you we're not sure when the next round of rain's going to come in. That's that's one of the reasons why there's so much little scale stuff going on the models are going to have a hard time with it. But it's sending that boundary northward which is going to impede any type of southern boundary movement. So we're just going to have to wait and see how this plays out this evening overnight and into tomorrow. Again, Dallas getting heavy rain and thunder right now. I don't see any advisories. Uh but I bet you they're going to get some street ponding. That is a severe thunderstorm warning for the Architects right now just north of Shreveport. As far as Houston, Southeast Texas, we've got some rain. Uh we had a little bit of thunder with that. Now it's just rain. That little piece of energy racing off to the north and east, Cleveland, Livingston, Pulk, Central County, Northern Liberty County getting wet. That's a new one right there uh north of Brennham in Washington County. You know, and that's a good example of, you know, there's a little piece of energy out here that models really didn't pick up on. And boom, it's popping a thunderh shower out there. That's the type of activity we're going to see for the rest of the afternoon into the evening. Here's a little closer view up 5969 Cleveland to Livingston. That's a pretty good downpour. It's going to come through the south side of Lake Livingston. FM787 getting a pretty good downpour right now as well.

[00:04:45]Okay, so here's where we stand now.

[00:04:48]Models actually have initiated pretty well. Models have picked up on the scattered shower activity Cleveland to Livingston.

[00:04:55]And let's see where they go from here.

[00:04:56]Between now and five o'clock, isolated shower or thundher could pop up.

[00:05:05]We go deeper into the evening, 7 o'clock. And this modeling is still uh catching on to the theme of this boundary coming in from the north, an outflow boundary, and pushing slowly south across the area this evening. So that'll be why we have the weather impact alert starting at 8:00 in the evening. By 7 o'clock, we've already got thund showers up here. Huntsville, Livingston, Brian to Madisonville. Watch how this boundary pushes south.

[00:05:30]But as it does so, it kind of loses some of its identity. So, it may not kick off a whole lot of activity this evening.

[00:05:37]We'll just kind of have to take it moment to moment. We're babysitting the radar this evening and overnight. This is by 11:00 tonight. That first boundary modeling has it pushing to the coast.

[00:05:45]We'll see what type of activity it's able to fire off this evening and overnight. Then watch from the west. We get another little piece of energy coming up the coast. Madagor Bay to Freeport. That's 2:30 in the morning.

[00:05:57]Galveastston down to Freeport, Surfside, back down to Elcampo, Victoria could be wet. 2:30 a.m. Watch how this kind of pushes east and another batch forms out west.

[00:06:09]This is where we could see the severe threat. This is 6:30 in the morning. So again, Brennham to Columbus, you guys are in that level two threat. You could see a stronger gust of straight line wind as that pushes in 6:30 in the morning. But watch as this pushes further. You'll you'll watch how it weakens.

[00:06:26]And there it is coming in. Still some rain, but this would be a repeat of what we had this morning, tomorrow morning, maybe a little later in the morning, uh with uh a lot of folks getting wet, but not providing much of a severe threat.

[00:06:40]That's by 10:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.

[00:06:42]But the bottom line is in the morning tomorrow, the commute, that's when we are looking like we're going to have the best chance for widespread rain and maybe a thunderstorm. We'll go for the day on Wednesday. That piece of energy pushes east, rings out a lot of the energy in our atmosphere. So, Wednesday afternoon, relatively quiet in the wake of that cluster of storms pushing east and sucking the energy out of the atmosphere. We'd only be in the 70s in the late afternoon and early evening. If that all plays out the way the models are seeing it, rain totals now through Friday.

[00:07:15]So this is a multi-day total, you know, the darker green, Houston, Harris County, 1 to two inches. And then the theme from the models is still that our northern counties would get the heavier rain. Uh Brandham to Huntsville, Lufkin, you're on the edge of that 3 to 5 inch rain total. Again, that's now through Friday. So multi-day totals. And then add on top of that Saturday, Sunday, and Memorial Day Monday. And after that, we've got totals widespread five to eight. Some of the darker red showing up would be more than 8 ines of rain. But again, this is a six day rain total now. So, our our smaller drainage ditches and gutters, they should be able to handle that with it spread out like that. But what I've seen with situations like this is that, you know, each round of rain, it doesn't cause a flood, but it adds more into the larger watersheds.

[00:08:13]All the water that falls eventually ends up in the bigger wersheds, the Trinity, the uh east and west fork of the Saneno, the Colorado, the Brazes. So those expect rises on those larger watersheds as all this rain eventually ends up in the big rivers and streams before it ends up in Galveston Bay or the Gulf of Mexico.

[00:08:36]How long is this wet weather pattern going to last? It's going to go on for a while. Here we are today.

[00:08:41]Uh this is the upper level wind pattern.

[00:08:44]So this is the trough right in here that's helping to trigger this wet pattern. And you can see here how the winds are divergent with height.

[00:08:53]They diverge up there. So that splitting jet is helping the thunderstorms grow in Dallas right now. So when you see the split jet like that, you know, you got a good chance for stronger storms. So that's today.

[00:09:06]Wednesday, we stay with this troughiness and we stay with the wet weather pattern on Wednesday.

[00:09:14]Thursday, still have the trough and you see the green. And that's the modeling saying, yep, good chance for at least a round or two of rain in that 24-h hour period on Thursday. Look at the snow in the higher elevations of the Rocky. Look at that sharp trough up here. They're they're going back to winter up there.

[00:09:33]Friday, still have the trough. You see the green over Houston, Southeast Texas.

[00:09:37]Rainy pattern.

[00:09:40]Saturday, another good chance for rain and thunder here.

[00:09:45]Sunday, still the trough.

[00:09:49]So, this is exactly like when we get a heat dome parked on top of us and it just won't move for days and days and days and we go to 100°. It's exactly like that, only instead of a heat dome, it's a trough parked on top of us, and it means rain each day. Rain, rain, rain. So, there's the trough. There's another chance for rain. That's Sunday, the 24th.

[00:10:16]That is Monday. Here's the trough. We're gonna get to be good friends with the trough.

[00:10:25]Tuesday. Still, this is a week from now. Same pattern.

[00:10:31]Man, it's just like when a heat dome gets stuck, only it's it's a wet trough.

[00:10:38]That's next Tuesday. Still rainy. Let's go further out. This is Wednesday. Okay.

[00:10:44]some hope. That's a zonal flow.

[00:10:48]Get back down. That's a zonal flow west to east. But still, what you've got is moisture coming off the Pacific at the mid and upper levels and disturbances that could cause a chance for a scattered shower next Wednesday.

[00:11:01]And I took this out to Thursday and you go all the way out to Thursday. So, at this point, you know, modeling is getting questionable, but still in general, it's the same pattern more than a week out.

[00:11:13]Little bit of a trough. We've got divergent upper level winds. You see the models painting rain on us again next Thursday. So that's 10 days out. So for the next 10 days, it looks like there's at least a rain chance at sometimes a high rain chance each day. And Noah's rainfall outlook has caught on to this.

[00:11:34]It caught on to it a while ago and wetter than normal across the state of Texas. Whatever is left of the drought will be gone.

[00:11:41]uh if that forecast does end up verifying.

[00:11:46]Okay, that is where we stand.

[00:11:51]Yeah, let me just wrap this up by showing you the extended. So again, each day and I need to update this next Tuesday at least a 50% chance for rain, but every day a chance for thunderstorms. It's just so difficult to pinpoint exactly when the clusters will come through. have the umbrella, be ready, and turn on notifications. You can just kind of turn your brain off, but the notifications are on, and you'll get the alert when bad weather approaches where you are. All right, that's where we stand. Uh, live broadcast, K HOU 11 News at 4 across all the platforms. We'll see you then.