Much Needed Rain Falls Over Houston

The remnants of Dolly continue to spin over east central Mexico at this hour with rain dieing down across the state due to the loss of daytime heating. Much needed rain fell this afternoon across metro Houston as an area of speed/moisture convergence set up across our coastal counties and caused fired off round after round of showers and thunderstorms through the evening. Some locations that received the heaviest rain included Stafford, Alief, Shaprstown, Memorial Villages, downtown Houston, and eastern sections of Harris county from Deer Park, Sheldon, and up to the east of Kingwood. Harris county gauges and KHGX storm total estimates show that the aforementioned areas saw anywhere from 1-5 inches of rain with most everyone else seeing a nice 0.5-2'' of rain. There were only a few reports of some street flooding, mainly caused by the intense rainfall rates under the stronger storms.

Activity has completely dissipated over southeast Texas this evening but with deep tropical moisture in place, can't rule out some isolated shower activity re-developing near the coast after midnight. I am not completely convinced that tomorrow will be as dry as the current NWS forecast is calling for since a lot of moisture remains off to our east and northeast. After glancing at some model soundings, it looks like we will have a breakable cap and attainable convective temps along with some decent moisture around; therefore it looks like we could be in for another round of more scattered convective activity tomorrow afternoon.

The weekend looks hot as a strong ridge of high pressure builds in from the north. Ground moisture should remain high so dew points are expected to remain in the low to mid 70s which could lead to some dangerous heat index numbers as temps warm into the upper 90s. Extended models want to try and break the ridge down by the middle part of next week, which could signal a return to afternoon and evening shower and thunderstorm activity.

Official Storm Totals as of 5pm this evening

Bush Airport : 0.69''
Houston Hobby: 0.75''
Pearland: 0.85''
Sugar Land: 1.54''
Tomball: 0.80''
Conroe: 0.20''
Huntsville: T
Angelton: 0.68''
NWS Office: 1.38''
Mission Bend 1.4m N: 2.46'' (My House)

KHGX Storm Total Precip