Jago Times "English Edition" Best Online Newspaper
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A powerful weather system over the Great Lakes is pushing colder weather into Houston for the weekend, but an arctic front arriving before Christmas weekend could bring a pipe-bursting freeze back to Southeast Texas.
A Freeze Warning is in effect for Washington, Burleson, Grimes, Montgomery, San Jacinto and Liberty Counties until 8 am Sunday morning.
These areas can expect to experience temperatures between 29-32 degrees tonight. The rest of us should stay just above freezing in the low to mid 30s. We should start off Sunday with partly cloudy skies but more cloud cover will move in during the afternoon. High temps should top out in the mid to upper 50s.
When is the next chance for rain?
A weather disturbance will bring widespread showers and thunderstorms Monday. This system has washout potential with rain off and on throughout the day as temperatures hover in the 40s. Rainfall totals are expected to mainly stay below 1″ but isolated higher amounts are possible.
When will the arctic front get here?
We predict the front will arrive on Thursday, December 22nd, and when it does temperatures will quickly fall below freezing as the north wind howls above 40 mph.
Are we expecting a hard freeze or any frozen precipitation with the arctic front?
A hard freeze (temperatures below 24 degrees for more than two hours) is likely for most of Southeast Texas Friday morning and possibly even Saturday and Sunday mornings. For Christmas Day, we are calling for it to be among the top 3 coldest Christmas mornings in Houston’s recorded history. If you have plans to leave town for the holiday, you might consider winterizing your home by shutting off your water and draining your pipes before you leave just in case we do end up with a hard, pipe-bursting freeze. As for frozen precipitation, the front should pass through mostly dry, but there is a small 20% chance a disturbance arriving over Christmas weekend could drop snowflakes somewhere in Southeast Texas.