Saturday, January 22, 2011

Tracking the Houston Marathon Weather Forecasts

The forecasts are starting to get meaningful now. Today's NWS discussion talks about the uncertainty for Marathon Sunday:

THIS DRY PATTERN LOOKS TO PERSIST FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE WEEK WITH SURFACE HIGH PRESSURE IN CONTROL. THE WEEK WILL BE ON THE COOL SIDE WITH A SLIGHT WARM UP ANTICIPATED ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY AS SURFACE HIGH PRESSURE FINALLY EDGES OFF TO THE EAST. MODELS ARE CARRYING SOME SLIGHT TIMING DIFFERENCES FOR NEXT WEEKEND`S COLD FRONT. WHEN IT DOES MOVE THROUGH (WENT WITH A SATURDAY NIGHT PASSAGE WITH THIS FORECAST PACKAGE)...WE WILL SEE COLDER TEMPERATURES FOR THE END OF THE MONTH AND THE BEGINNING OF FEBRUARY AS STRONG HIGH PRESSURE BEGINS TO RIDGE INTO THE AREA FROM THE NORTHERN PLAINS.

The 7.5-day model includes marathon morning [the graph is in UTC, six hours ahead of Houston] the temperature about 40°F and a light north wind. The text version of the MRF model. shows a low of 44°F and stronger winds (10mph) in the morning.




The Weather Channel tends to weight their long term predictions with seasonal averages. For Saturday night they show:
Overnight Low 41°F
Precip 20%
Wind: NNW 9 mph
Max. Humidity: 67%
Partly Cloudy


For Sunday they show:
High 60°F
Precip 0%
Wind: N 11 mph
Max. Humidity: 53%
UV Index: 5 Moderate
Sunrise: 7:13 AM CT
Sunny


AccuWeather has Saturday night and Sunday on their 6 to 10 day forecast. They predict a much stronger cold front:

Saturday Night, Jan 29
Low: 31 °F RealFeel®: 24 °F
Mostly clear
Winds NNW at 12mph with gusts to 27

Sunday, Jan 30
High: 55°F RealFeel®: 52°F
Cooler with plenty of sun
Winds N at 11 mph with gusts to 26

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

All right, looks ok so far! Thanks for all the reports. We're all checking that weather.

Good thing they didn't have it on the usually 3rd Sunday in January, it was raining all day. The marathon organizers were genius to change the date this year!!

PeterL