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National Weather Service Forecast Discussion

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354
FXUS64 KHGX 040658
AFDHGX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Houston/Galveston TX
1258 AM CST Wed Mar 4 2026

...New DISCUSSION, MARINE...

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Unseasonably warm weather will continue through this week.
  Overnight lows will be nearer to average highs than to average
  lows, and daily records may fall.

- Some isolated to scattered showers may sneak into
  northern/western portions of the area Wednesday, but no real
  significant rainfall is expected until rain chances increase
  this weekend.

- Sea fog has become dense again tonight around the lower
  Galveston Bay and adjacent Gulf waters, and is expected to pose
  hazard to navigation into Wednesday morning. There is potential
  for further fog nightly for at least the next couple of nights.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 1258 AM CST Wed Mar 4 2026

Sea fog is again plaguing the lowest portion of Galveston Bay and
the adjacent nearshore Gulf waters - mostly an issue for marine
interests, but the Island and Bolivar Peninsula will also see at
least sporadically dense fog overnight as well - Galveston has
seen a short stretch of 1/4 mile visibility already tonight.
Webcams also show fog being an issue at Freeport/Surfside as well,
and may be slowly creeping down the coast towards Matagorda Bay.
While potentially intense right on the water, it appears that
the most humid layer is too shallow and winds too high to push the
sea fog much inland. Angleton, for example, is a known foggy spot
but remains at 10 miles.

Today, a cold front finally completes its utter failure in
reaching Southeast Texas, stalling out and dissipating well to our
north. This will keep us in the hot, relatively humid airmass that
we`ve been in recently. I do expect today will be a touch cooler
thanks to increasing cloudiness from the attempted frontal
approach, but still much warmer than average. The heat should only
roar back for the late week, and then nudge back downwards for the
weekend when clouds and rain potential increase with the next cold
front to try its hand at making it into Southeast Texas. The NBM
qualitatively has a pretty good handle on this, though I suspect
the deterministic numbers are a touch on the cool side. My
solution here was to take the higher of the NBM deterministic
output and the median of the NBM PDF. I gave the 75th percentile a
try on for size, but came out a touch too warm. My goal here was
to create essentially a persistence forecast from today for
Thursday and Friday.

At night, I shoot for persistence basically straight through the
period, and this also ended up being a blend of NBM and NBM50 like
the highs. This keeps us with several days of low temperatures
closer to average highs than anything else, and I suspect that
we`ll see some more record high mins fall through the week. I also
made sure to put in the work on correcting the NBM`s systematic
failure to provide proper afternoon dewpoints given the warm temps
and breezy southerly winds. And while there were improvements to
be made, it should not cause significant concerns as far as fire
weather goes. I`m still a bit nervous as Caldwell had RH dive
below 40 percent Tuesday afternoon, but it appears that moisture
should deepen enough that we don`t mix out quite as significantly
in the late week. Theoretically, this northwest corner also has
the best chance for rain Wednesday as well, but I`m not going to
put a whole lot of hope on that until it happens.

The other big thing on the forecast plate is rain potential for
the weekend. In some ways, we have a number of boxes being checked
for heavy rain. Persistent low level onshore flow, got that!
Precipitable water values well above seasonal averages, check!
Both the NAEFS and Euro ensemble means bring PWATs to above the
90th percentile, and even over the 99th percentile in spots. And,
that next cold front should be more successful in reaching our
area but stall out somewhere in it...and that gives us a quasi-
stationary boundary to regenerate convection along. All of those
are key ingredients of heavy rain situations here.

But, I admit I`m still not terribly concerned about a widespread
heavy rain event materializing this weekend. The main thing that
stands out to me is despite the front moving in, the Eastern
Seaboard ridging remains pretty resilient. As a result, the
northern stream upper trough is mostly held up in the Northern
Plains and Great Lakes. And while a packet of vorticity does shear
off and become a closed low in the southern stream, it makes very
little eastern progress. In the LREF cluster analysis, only
trialing Cluster 4 has this low centered east of Baja California.
This has my confidence pretty high that midlevel heights will be
relatively high - as in, the 500 mb heights even in Cluster 4 are
around the 75th percentile over SE TX. This should result in
convection that is going to struggle to get going and maintain
itself, and should hamper rain rates, even in spite of the other
synoptic ingredients present.

That`s not to say it won`t rain. I`ve even hedged above NBM rain
chances modestly. I`m just not terribly convinced this is going to
be the drought buster we`d all like to have. This weekend looks
like a "take what we can get and be happy for it" event for most
all of the area. Given the amount of moisture present, we could
still see some localized excessive rain hotspots emerge, likely
near wherever the front does stall out. WPC has marginal risk
areas in its excessive rain outlooks drawn out pretty well for
this scenario, and while it mostly is north of our forecast area,
it does include our northernmost zones. Something we`ll continue
to evaluate as we make our way through the week. Ultimately, the
places with the heaviest rain threat will likely be very near the
stalled boundary, and while it`s too early to speak to that
location with much confidence right now, at least it gives us
something to focus on as we draw nearer to the weekend.

&&

.AVIATION...
(06Z TAF Issuance)
Issued at 1130 PM CST Tue Mar 3 2026

Mostly low MVFR across SETX, but with some IFR and even LIFR at
GLS with dense sea fog. TAFs have small decrease yet in CIGs, even
dumping SGR into IFR, but otherwise largely hold existing
categories through the night. Improvement from 15Z or so onward,
and (perhaps optimistically closer to the coast) bring all but GLS
back to VFR in the afternoon. There is a PROB30 for TSRA at CLL,
and considered it at UTS and CXO, but think front stalls out short
for impacts to most/all terminals in our area. Sketch out flight
conditions degrading again after sundown, but staying relatively
vague for now and will let future cycles refine the timing/impacts
more. In general, persistence seems like a decent first guess.

&&

.MARINE...
Issued at 1258 AM CST Wed Mar 4 2026

Dense sea fog centered around the Galveston Bay entrance and
adjacent Gulf waters has prompted a dense fog advisory for the
upper portion of the SE Texas coastal waters. That dense fog is
beginning to creep down the coastline towards Matagorda Bay, and
the advisory may be need to be extended further down the coast.

Beyond the current fog, onshore winds in the 10-15 knot range
will prevail into the weekend. One can expect some periods of
haze and sea fog over the waters as well, primarily in the
nighttime and early morning hours. Any patches of dense fog will
be most likely in the lower portions of the bays and nearby Gulf
waters.

&&

.PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS...
College Station (CLL)  67  86  67  87 /  10  10  10  30
Houston (IAH)  68  84  70  85 /  10  10  10  30
Galveston (GLS)  66  75  67  76 /  10  10  10  20

&&

.HGX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
TX...None.
GM...Dense Fog Advisory until 10 AM CST this morning for GMZ335-355.

&&

$$

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

NWS HGX Office Area Forecast Discussion