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National Weather Service Forecast Discussion

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985
FXUS64 KHGX 061125
AFDHGX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX
525 AM CST Fri Feb 6 2026

...New AVIATION...

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Mariners navigating in the shallows of upper Galveston Bay will
  need to continue to exercise caution through low tide cycles
  where negative tide levels are anticipated.

- Temperatures continue to warm Friday and into next week. Today,
  look for highs across the area to rise into the 70s almost area-
  wide, only slightly cooler at the coast. This warming trend
  should continue through the first half of the new week.

- The one pause to this trend looks to be Tuesday, as we see a day
  of increased cloudiness, along with a chance for rain and some
  storms to pass through. This will exit Tuesday night, however,
  putting us back on the warming trend.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 1156 PM CST Thu Feb 5 2026

A cool start to Thursday set us up for a seasonable day despite
plenty of sun - a bit warmer than Wednesday, though not much.
However, overnight temperatures into Friday morning should give us
a good 10 degree head start to temperatures over Thursday, which
means a similar day should put most all of the area easily into
the 70s Friday afternoon. The one exception will be right on
the immediate coast, where colder water temps should manage to
keep those beach temps just on the low side of 70 degrees.

Much of the rest of the forecast period is gauging how strong
ridging will be throughout the column, and the potential for
warming. The qualitative trend of the deterministic NBM seems to
hold pretty well, with warming continuing pretty much through the
whole forecast period, barring a bit of a pause on Tuesday; we`ll
get to that shortly. Like last night, I did tend to hedge against
the deterministic NBM numbers by replacing it with the median of
the NBM probabilistic distribution where that number was higher.
With onshore flow becoming persistent, that move generally bumped
up lows near the coast, which strikes me as a good move. It also
nudges afternoon highs up modestly.

This also seems like the way to go for now - while ensemble mid-
level heights and 850 temps are definitely skewing towards the
high end of their climatology, it is still not a slam dunk
indication of real extreme warm event. The EPS Extreme Forecast
Index/EFI also continues to waggle its eyebrows about high-end
heat for late winter, but don`t really venture into the "yes, look
out for big warmth" territory. This is in both the EFI itself,
and in not seeing much in the accompanying shift- of-tails values.
Where the EFI itself helps gauge confidence in modeled extremes,
the shift-of-tails tries to give some indication of just how
extreme the extreme may be. Long story short (too late!), all of
this ensemble data tells me that while I should be confident to
go well above seasonal averages with my temperatures, I probably
don`t want to go playing in record territory just yet. It doesn`t
take much of an upwards hedge on NBM to hit that mark.

Finally, let`s step back to Tuesday. NBM finally seems to have
caught on to the potential for some thunderstorms to go with the
rain showers as this upper trough shoots through in the southern
stream. This`ll give us a one day break from stacked ridging, more
clouds, a pause on the warming trend for a day, and *fingers
crossed!* enough coverage in showers and storms to give us a
little more help on the drought front. I don`t anticipate it will
be much on the broad scale, but every little bit helps!

Now, I had mentioned some deterministic model stuff last night as
a potential worst case scenario, because the Euro setup had
caught my eye for not just storms, but maybe even something strong
to severe. Tonight, we have a good example of why we can note
things in deterministic models, we don`t want to get too attached
to them (especially at range). Those deterministic models aren`t
quite so concerning this go `round. Still rain, still some
thunderstorms, but nothing that makes me stop and go "uh oh".
(Another good example, something something Valentine`s Day
Blizzard or something like that? I was off that day, what happened
to that thing?). That said, I don`t want to completely dismiss
the idea of something stronger on Tuesday. We still have a fairly
potent trough pushing through, an upper jet streak, and an influx
of moisture at low levels. If all those ingredients line up just
right/wrong, stronger storms could be back on the table. But the
fact that such a scenario only flits into the model picture here
and there is a good indicator to me that it`s something to
consider as a low probability/worst case scenario, while the more
likely outcome is less intense and more beneficial to the area`s
rainfall deficits.

&&

.AVIATION...
(12Z TAF Issuance)
Issued at 520 AM CST Fri Feb 6 2026

VWP`s from IAH, HOU & HGX radars indicate some westerly winds
30-35kt between 1-2kft. With fairly light surface winds early this
morning, we`ve extended the mention of low level wind shear for
the next 3 hours or so until we get some mixing. Otherwise, VFR
conditions with west winds 5-10kt well inland, 9-18kt metro to the
coast. Speeds diminish as the afternoon progresses.  47

&&

.MARINE...
Issued at 1156 PM CST Thu Feb 5 2026

Winds tonight through Friday afternoon will be elevated enough,
15 to 20 knots, that caution flags are up on Gulf waters into
Saturday. Otherwise, generally light winds and low seas will
prevail into early next week. Winds will begin southwesterly to
westerly, then briefly become offshore on Saturday before finally
veering to become easterly to southeasterly Saturday night through
early next week. The next chance for showers and thunderstorms
will not be come until Tuesday or Tuesday night.

On the bays, negative tide levels can be expected to continue. The
most severe conditions can continue to be expected on upper
portions of Galveston Bay through the weekend. However, there may
be times when water levels are not so low as to require a low
water advisory.

&&

.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS...
College Station (CLL)  80  47  76  48 /   0   0   0   0
Houston (IAH)  79  51  74  49 /   0   0   0   0
Galveston (GLS)  69  54  62  55 /   0   0   0   0

&&

.HGX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
TX...None.
GM...Small Craft Should Exercise Caution until 3 PM CST this
     afternoon for GMZ350-355.

     Small Craft Should Exercise Caution through this afternoon for
     GMZ370-375.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...Luchs
AVIATION...47
MARINE...Luchs

NWS HGX Office Area Forecast Discussion