Doug Brown retires

Long time weatherman Doug Brown is hanging up his barometer this week, completing a 50 year career in television. A remarkable accomplishment. Prior to coming to KTRK in 1975, Doug also worked at KWTV in Waco and KHOU in Houston.

Off-air Doug is the same friendly, folksy person you saw on TV. He is a good friend and a trusted member of our weather team. We will miss him.

As you probably know from watching Doug on-air, he likes climate statistics. What you probably don't know is that those statistics came from meticulous, hand-written weather records Doug kept for several decades. He could find a weather factoid in his notes faster than the rest of us could look it up on the computer.

Not that Doug was afraid of computers. Anytime I scheduled some computer training for the weather staff, Doug was right in there. When he started in TV, weathercasters were using markers on a wall-map. So Doug appreciated all the work computers did for us, how they made our job easier.

Now, he really gets to enjoy the easy life. Doug said he plans to spend time with family, do some traveling and cooking. His forecast looks sunny.

Congratulations Doug!

Near freezing Wednesday morning

Did you visit the garden center this past weekend? Those tender plants will not like the weather coming up this week.

A cold front will blow through early Tuesday. Gusty north winds will keep us cool...about 15-20° cooler than it was on Monday! The winds will relax Tuesday night which will allow temps to cool even more. By Wednesday morning we'll be near freezing in Houston and below freezing in some outlying cities. 

It will be a light freeze, with temps below 32° for an hour or two. But you should still cover up newly planted flowers and vegetables.

NOAA: Global warming not causing more hurricane damage

Meteorologists with the National Hurricane Center say the increase in hurricane damage is caused by an increase in the number of people living along the coast. The problem is not an increase in the intensity or number of hurricanes.

According to Chris Landsea, a meteorologist who has researched this topic since 1998, “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts."

The researchers studied the population, infrastructure and wealth along our nation's coast. While there are active and quiet tropical seasons, Landsea says, "the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time.”

Think about the new high-priced condos and beach homes built (or being built) along Galveston Island. Landsea's team estimates if the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 were to hit today the losses could reach $78 billion...simliar to the cost of Hurricane Katrina.

This is something that affects all of us. The company that insures your home, also insures homes and businesses along the coast.

The research team warns the economic cost of hurricane damage will continue to climb unless there's a change in the population growth along the coasts (not likely), and an improvement in the construction standards.

Foggy start to Friday

Areas of dense fog will cover parts of southeast Texas early Friday morning. Visibility could be less than one mile in some spots, especially near the coast.

A stationary front is sitting across the area separating cool air to the north from warm, humid air to the south. A few more showers could develop along the front during the day Friday. But gradually the front should drift east of the area, allowing cooler temperatures to return...for a day.

The weekend will be sunny and warm with highs in the 70s! Perfect.

Tornado Watch until 9 PM

Updated Thursday afternoon:

The thunderstorms that are developing over southeast Texas are not that big. Our exclusive RadarXray shows storm tops only extend 20-30,000 feet above the ground. The image to the right shows a slice of the thunderstorms and the precipitation inside the core of the individual cells. The first line represents 20,000 feet with 10,000 foot steps above that. Although you can't see it in this image, we also have the ability to move the Xray slice to check for hail aloft.

Our analysis shows there's still a lot of instability across the area, but there's not much wind shear in southeast Texas. There is more twisting within the atmosphere across Louisiana where there have been a few tornadoes this afternoon. We expect some isolated reports of hail could come from the storms that are developing. But the threat of tornadoes is minimal.

There is still a Tornado Watch for the eastern part of the ABC13 viewing area until 9 PM tonight.

Strong thunderstorm are developing in the warm, humid air this afternoon. Some of the storms will strengthen quickly and could produce large hail and damaging winds. A cool front moving through this evening will reduce the chance of severe weather.

Track the storms online with MegaDoppler 13.

Click here for a map showing all active watches and warnings in the area.

Thunder on Thursday

A surge of warm, moist air blew into the Houston area on Wednesday. Showers fell for most of the day, with isolated thunder every now and then. Some of your Eyewitness Storm Spotters reported 1-2" of rain.

On Thursday, a cold front will push in from the north. The collision of the warm, moist air along the leading edge of that colder air will produce stronger thunderstorms, some of which could be severe. The Storm Prediction Center has put us under a "slight risk" for large hail and damaging winds. There's also the possibility of isolated tornadoes Thursday afternoon and evening from some of the stronger storms that develop ahead of the cold front.

While some rain might linger into early Friday, we should clear out by midday with good weather all the way through the weekend!

Total Lunar Eclipse Wednesday night

This is an exciting week for stargazers. The International Space Station and Space Shuttle Atlantis passed over Houston on Monday and Tuesday evening. And on Wednesday, we'll have a total lunar eclipse.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth, the Sun and Moon are all in a line and the shadow of the Earth falls across the surface of the Moon. The eclipse on Wednesday will last about three and half hours and for about 50 minutes of that time, the moon will be a dark, copper color.

Here's what you'll see:

• 7:43 PM -- Partial eclipse begins
• 9:01 PM -- Total eclipse begins
• 9:51 PM -- Total eclipse ends
• 11:09 PM -- Partial eclipse ends

The George Observatory at the Brazos Bend State Park will be open for a special viewing party from 7:30 PM to 10:00 PM Wednesday night. For $3 you can look at the eclipse through one of the most power telescopes in the country. Volunteers will also have smaller telescopes set up on the observation deck for a free look.

Unfortunately, we have clouds in the forecast for Wednesday night, with a few showers.

Photo courtesy of Loyd Overcash.

Space Station and Shuttle visible tonight!

If you didn't get a chance to see the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle Atlantis pass overhead on Monday, there's another chance Tuesday. Atlantis has undocked from the ISS so you'll see two separate bright spots move along the horizon when their orbits take them over our part of the world.

Look toward the WNW horizon at 6:41 PM on Tuesday. The ISS and Atlantis will be in the SW corner of the sky at 6:44 PM. They will fade into the SSE part of the sky at 6:46 PM.

The ISS and Shuttle will not appear high in the sky. The orbit places the sightings pretty close to the horizon.

Sunset is at 6:12 PM so the sky should be completely dark. Unfortunately, I do expect some clouds in the sky which might block your view.

On Wednesday night, we'll have a Total Lunar Eclipse. But again, clouds might get in the way.

Post-analysis of Saturday's weather

One of the most frustrating severe weather features to forecast is "the cap," the layer of warmer air aloft that suppresses thunderstorm development. Everything can be in place for a storm outbreak, but if the cap holds you get nothing. Saturday's forecast for "supercell thunderstorms...capable of producing tornadoes" was based on overwhelming forecast guidance that suggested the upper atmosphere would cool with the approach of the upper low and the cap would erode during the late afternoon hours, during maximum heating. That would allow rapid intensification of developing storms.

But the cap held. And the supercell thunderstorms did not develop as feared.

We also believe the cap might have been stronger than the forecast models were indicating because of the cooling effect of the storms that developed late Friday. The strong cap also kept us cloudy early Saturday. Without peeks of sunshine, our temperatures were not as warm as we forecast, therefore the atmosphere was not as unstable.

Then there was the cold front. You might have noticed that there were a lot of storms developing behind the cold front. Our analysis late Saturday showed two cold fronts!  One near the ground and another about 5,000 feet above the ground. It appears the shallow cold air near the surface was rushing ahead.  Strong thunderstorms were developing along the surface cold front, but they weren't very tall. Radar analysis showed cloud tops were only 30-35,000 feet. Again, the storms seemed to be hitting the warm air aloft. At this point, I wrote on the weather blog that the threat of tornadoes was diminishing.

The Storm Prediction Center doesn't put southeast Texas in a "moderate risk" area very often; this is more common in tornado alley. If the cap had broken, all other weather elements were in place for a significant severe weather outbreak. But like every major weather system, if even one of the elements is out of place or fails to develop, the outcome can be very different.

Your invitation to join SkyWarn

The National Weather Service SkyWarn program gives you an opportunity to be part of the severe weather warning process. Doppler radar can detect dangerous twisting winds inside thunderstorms, but it takes a trained storm spotter to provide “ground truth,” to verify when and where severe weather is developing.

“The SkyWarn program is designed to train interested citizens to be the eyes of the National Weather Service,” said Gene Hafele, the severe warning coordinator at the Houston-Galveston National Weather Service office. Reports from storm spotters often trigger a weather warning.

If you’re interested in being a SkyWarn storm spotter, you’ll need to attend one of the upcoming training sessions. On February 21, the Clear Lake Amateur Radio Club will host a training session between 6:30-9:00 PM.  Another session will be held at the Fort Bend County Annex building on March 17 from 6:30-9:00 PM.