Thursday, January 17, 2013

Cruise Control



By Gene Norman
 on twitter

After our coldest morning so far this winter, we're settling in for a steady and quiet weather pattern.  This morning, the mercury plunged all the way down to 29° at Bush airport.  Several locations north of the city spent anywhere from 8 to 10 hours below the freezing mark.  Even Galveston was cold, waking up to 36°.  Prior to this morning, the coldest we'd seen was 30° back on December 30, 2012.  We've recovered nicely to a high of 62° thanks to the abundant sunshine, dry conditions and fairly calm wind.  A high pressure cell parked firmly over the state will keep us dry for the next few days.  It's been a while since we've seen a satellite picture that looked like this:



By the way, those lighter specks you see in northeast Texas are lakes.  In this infrared satellite image from this afternoon, the darker colors indicate colder temperatures.  The lakes are still a bit warmer than the ground, so they show up lighter.

The high pressure cell will slowly drift over us and then off to our east the next few days, keeping us in this mild pattern.  Even though a more moist flow returns by early next week, it could a long while (week or so) before we see the next significant rains.

TONIGHT: Clear and cold.  Temperatures falling below freezing for a few hours north of I-10.  In Houston, expect lows around 34° with low 40s along the coast.  Nearly calm wind.

NORMAN NUMBER FOR FRIDAY: 8
FRIDAY: A crisp start, then much milder with plenty of sunshine.  Highs in the low 60s with light northeast winds 5-10 mph.

NORMAN NUMBER FOR SATURDAY: 8
SATURDAY: Cool morning followed by a mild afternoon with mostly sunny skies.  Highs in the mid 60s.  Northeast wind early becoming east 5-10 mph by afternoon.

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