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National Weather Service Forecast Discussion

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679
FXUS64 KHGX 160643
AFDHGX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX
1243 AM CST Fri Jan 16 2026

...New DISCUSSION, MARINE, FIRE WEATHER...

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Near-critical fire weather conditions may emerge Saturday
  afternoon as gusty north winds bring in a new surge of dry air
  behind the cold front.

- Negative tide levels are are expected through at least the
  weekend, being reinforced after Friday`s cold front.

- Though brief and not causing impacts, there is a chance for a
  short, isolated instances of sleet and/or flurries on Saturday
  night. This will be followed later in the night by a light
  freeze from the northern and west fringes of the Houston metro
  northward.

- Our next good chance for rainfall will come towards the middle
  of next week as a coastal trough forms in the remnants of a cold
  front that will pass through our area late Monday.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 1243 AM CST Fri Jan 16 2026

While a good word to describe the weather so far this week is
"seasonable", one aspect of winter and the increased influence of
the northern jet stream in the region also means another good
word is "unstable". We`ve been bouncing almost daily between
conditions that are a little on the cool side of average to
conditions on the warm side of average with frequent dry cold
fronts passing through. Through early next week, basically nothing
changes in that at all.

Friday will be our turn on the warm side, and with highs on the
coastal plain from the Houston metro southwestward edging into the
middle 70s, it will be among the warmer of the warm trips during
the past week. Things do look a bit cooler well inland, as our
next front looks to push in from the north in the early afternoon,
and will likely chop down temps for places like College Station
and Crockett before the natural high. The front should spend the
rest of the afternoon pushing towards the Gulf coast, and out over
the coastal waters in the evening.

Gusty north to northeast winds will pick up overnight Friday into
Saturday in the front`s wake, bring in a new slug of colder, drier
air. As vegetation continues to dry after multiple dry fronts, a
more serious fire weather situation may begin to emerge on
Saturday with the gusty and dry conditions, with more details on
that in the fire weather section below. Beyond that, we`ll be
looking for a colder, gusty day on land, and degrading conditions
on the waters with strong winds and building seas (more on that in
the marine section below).

Saturday night is starting to look...let`s call it...interesting.
while the low level airmass scours out moisture from the bottom
up, the big mid-level trough digs deep into Texas. And yes, since
we seem to manage this occasionally, this puts us in a spot where
we`re watching the race between plummeting moisture against
forcing for light precip, and if we get some precip to develop in
time, it will fall into a chilly, dry airmass that will first
evaporate all the snow/rainfall...but as that evaporation cools
the column further, eventually gives us a chance for a brief
five-minute flurry fiesta or burst of light sleet before
everything shuts off completely. Given we had this situation occur
with an earlier front that I was sure would dry out too early, I
feel more confident that with moisture lingering a bit longer and
good mesoscale forcing along a low level frontogenetic band, that
we get this to occur again Saturday night. Now...impacts will be
nil...and unless you`re out looking for it Saturday night and are
in a spot where some frozen stuff survives to the ground, you
won`t even notice it. But I`ve got to think we pull off the
briefest bit of sleet/flurries somewhere in the area at some
point. That`s still not enough to make me put in any PoPs or
mention in the gridded forecast, as that is based on accumulating
precip.

And while a few pellets of sleet and/or flash of flakes may steal
the scene, the bigger issue Saturday night will be the freeze
potential. Both NAEFS and EPS bring 850 temps below the 3rd
percentile Saturday night, with the eastern half of the area
below even the 1st percentile. Correspondingly, the EPS Extreme
Forecast Index gets into the -0.6 to -0.7 range for extreme cold
anomalies Saturday night. This is a fairly strong signal to me
that we`ve got quite the chilly night ahead of us - perhaps not
record or extremely dangerous, but with a real risk of a light
freeze creeping into the northern and western fringes of the
Houston metro, and perhaps even a brief hard freeze up in our far
north around Houston County.

To kind of sketch out the fuzzy part of where the freeze line may
land early Sunday morning, let`s look at some NBM probabilities
of freezing temps. Places like The Woodlands, Cypress, Katy, and
even out to Eagle Lake are in the 66-75 percent range. Strong
probabilities of a light freeze into the edges of the Houston
metro, and even a bit south of I-10 in the more rural west. Even
down into the area far to the southwest of the metro see NBM probs
below 32 in the 50-60 percent range, for locations like Wharton,
Bay City, and Angleton. As you get closer to the coast and into
the urban core of Houston, though, probabilities drop pretty
rapidly. Matagorda and Downtown Houston? Only right around 25
percent. Pearland and League City on the south side gets up to 31
percent thanks to being a little more suburban, while Texas City
and Galveston are less than 5 percent. We can also see the lower,
but existent threat of a hard freeze, as only locations in Madison
and Houston counties even approach the coin flip of 50 percent.
Still, if you`re critically vulnerable to a hard freeze up there,
it may be worth taking the preparations, just to be safe.

Look for onshore flow to return at some point on Sunday, but this
is largely just a continuation of the same old pattern, as it will
be quickly erased by a weak, likely dry front on Monday. And then,
that`s where things start to change. Rather than keeping the whole
wave train chugging along, switching back to onshore flow ahead of
the next front, things finally start to get gummed up. A coastal
trough/warm front starts to form up in the remnants of Monday`s
front, and will lift back towards Southeast Texas. By midweek,
this will boost humidity and ultimately bring in some solid rain
potential to at least the coast, and potentially to all of
Southeast Texas depending on how far north this marine airmass
lifts. I`m not terribly concerned about heavy rain at this point,
as precipitable water values increase above average but fall short
of the 90th percentile in the ensemble guidance. While this can
certainly change and we`ll be watching, for now I invite all area
Dads to join me at the window mid-week, take a nice sip of warm
beverage from a mug and say, "We really needed this".

&&

.AVIATION...
(00Z TAF Issuance)
Issued at 510 PM CST Thu Jan 15 2026

Winds become light overnight. We expect a general S to SSW flow,
though many areas could become variable. Tomorrow, expect winds
to increase from the SW ahead of an approaching frontal boundary.
We think winds will generally be 10-15 knots with occasionally
higher gusts. Late in the day into the evening, a cold front will
shift winds to a more northerly direction.

VFR vis/cigs expected through the TAF period.

&&

.MARINE...
Issued at 1243 AM CST Fri Jan 16 2026

Light to moderate winds out of the south to southwest have become
established over the waters. Wind speeds are generally below the
threshold for caution flags, though a handful of gusts peak into
the upper teens here and there. One marine hazard that has not
improved, though, are the abnormally low tide levels on Galveston
and Matagorda bays. Despite winds turning onshore, they are light
winds and astronomical tide levels alone are already very near the
advisory threshold. Because of this, any tidal levels below those
astronomical levels will make low water advisories necessary, and
the current onshore flow will not be enough to rebound from the
low water levels we have been seeing. The return of onshore winds
after a cold front passes Friday night will just make conditions
worse again. The low water advisory has thus been extended through
the weekend, and may need to be dragged out even further depend on
how tidal levels rebound before Monday`s cold front.

Small Craft Advisories will likely be needed again on Saturday
through early Sunday for strong northeast winds after the earlier
front. There is low chance for light rain showers on Saturday as
well. A stray pellet of sleet or a snowflake can`t be completely
ruled out in the Galveston Bay area Saturday night before precip
chances go to zero, though potential for accumulation is nil and
there would be no impacts. Onshore winds return Sunday night as
the unsettled weather pattern continues, as it is merely a leadup
to the next cold front late Monday.

&&

.FIRE WEATHER...
Issued at 1243 AM CST Fri Jan 16 2026

With the passage of recent dry cold fronts, fire weather
conditions have been mitigated by fuel moisture near or above
average levels, counteracting the dry and breezy post-frontal
conditions. However, with each dry front, fuels grow drier from
the lack of rainfall and return of meaningful, sustained humidity.

More serious fire weather conditions may emerge after Friday`s
cold front, as relative humidity below 30 percent, and even below
20 percent in the driest spots will coincide with gusty
north/northeast winds on Saturday afternoon. In addition, Texas
A&M fuel moisture data indicates a drier fuelscape, driven by what
appears to be 100 hour fuel moistures reaching an inflection point
of dryness after several days without rain. Taken together,
elevated fire weather conditions for much of the area are very
likely, with the potential for near-critical to critical
conditions. The best potential for critical fire weather
conditions look to be in the Matagorda Bay area northward, where
the driest, windiest conditions are expected, along with fuel beds
that tend to be fine, grassy fuels and more responsive to drops in
relative humidity. A major mitigating factor in this situation is
that the post-frontal airmass is also colder, with Saturday highs
in the area only reaching into the lower to middle 50s.

Beyond Saturday, we`ll need to continue to monitor conditions into
early next week, as moisture return will again be weak, keeping
conditions dry through another front passing through Monday.
Moderation will come towards the middle of the week, with the
return of more humid air and meaningful rain chances.

&&

.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS...
College Station (CLL)  43  70  38  52 /   0   0   0   0
Houston (IAH)  45  74  45  54 /   0   0   0   0
Galveston (GLS)  52  69  51  57 /   0   0  20  10

&&

.HGX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
TX...None.
GM...Low Water Advisory until 6 PM CST Sunday for GMZ330-335.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...Luchs
AVIATION...Self
MARINE...Luchs

NWS HGX Office Area Forecast Discussion