Weak Front and Remnants of TD 5

It looks like an interesting first half of the week across southeast Texas as several features could potentially impact the region. The first feature to watch will be a weak frontal boundary currently (1pm Sunday) located across northern Oklahoma which is moving south. The second will be the remnant low of TD 5 that is spinning across southwest Georgia; currently forecast to possibly move south into the north central Gulf and run about a 30 percent chance for tropical cyclone development over the next 48 hours. Both of the systems will likely play an important roll and tend to complicate in our wind forecast the next few days.

Wind direction will be the main challenge....if the weak front can make it as far south as the Houston area, we will likely see more northeasterly and potentially easterly winds; however, as we will be on the western side of the low forecast to slowly develop over the northern Gulf, our winds may turn more north-northwesterly, to possibly westerly depending on the future track and strength of the low. A stronger low and more westerly track would give us a much more northwesterly wind flow....a weaker low and a further easterly track might not have much influence on our local winds at all, keeping them more northeast should the front make it down here.

The 12z models have some timing differences but do generally agree in bringing northerly winds, changing to northeast then east-southeast through the day Monday across the Houston area. The NAM shows southwesterly winds during the morning turning north-northwesterly towards noon then back around to the southeast by the late afternoon and evening. The GFS keeps weak northwesterly winds across the region during the morning turning northeast to east by the afternoon. Therefore it looks like the best window for easterly winds will be 18-00z Monday. Otherwise we will likely see northerly winds during the day which could bring down pollution from the Dallas area. All in all, it looks like an interest few days.

12z Forecasting Sounding for Hobby Airport showing how winds change during the day.