Hang on to your hat!

Forecast: Cold and Windy!

Look at it this way: a cold, cheesy pizza is still pizza! And a cold, breezy weekend is still the weekend, so there is that. Get ready for big changes starting tomorrow morning. Forecast below, but what’s causing the big change?

First, if the Earth didn’t spin we’d have an entirely different world, but it does, counterclockwise (or west to east). So when cold air from the north pole meets warm air from the equator the different air masses and a spinning Earth cause the much talked about jet stream. The greater the temperature contrast, the stronger the jet stream.

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You can see we’ve had a bit of an Arctic outbreak this week, really affecting eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. and that continues tomorrow. Look at how the cold purples and blue colors smash up again the warmer greens:

courtesy tropicaltidbits.com

That southerly dip in the cold temperatures all the way to Oklahoma pushes the jet all the way to Texas and the jet is what will drive a strong low pressure system just to our north. The jet is in white and the red colors represent the strongest winds, which are right over Texas!

The red portion represents the strongest winds. courtesy tropicaltidbits.com

That low doesn’t have a lot of moisture to work with so this isn’t a big rain storm, but the wind around the low along with the upper level jet winds will translate to a very breezy weekend. You can see below how the winds (in green) will wrap around that low. I put a red dot where we are:

courtesy tropicaltidbits.com

Sustained winds in Houston will average 20-25 mph with gusts to 30 mph and already we have wind advisories in place for tomorrow. In Galveston, the sustained winds will average 30 mph with gusts to 44 mph! That’s tropical storm force (39 mph+)!!

courtesy National Weather Service Houston

Marathon runners

And while the winds begin to calm down some on Sunday, they remain a respectable 15 mph out of the cold north which means chilly and challenging conditions for the Chevron Houston Marathon. Wind chills at 7 a.m. will fall to 26°.

Cold and Breezy!!

No one ever said running 26.2 miles would be easy. Here’s the full 10-Day and a warm up IS coming:

10 Day Forecast from click2houston.com

In the meantime, my advice for the weekend: Snuggle up with a hot, cheesy pizza.

Have a safe weekend!

Frank

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About the Authors:

KPRC 2's chief meteorologist with four decades of experience forecasting Houston's weather.