Houston weather: Stormy Election Day on the way

Back out to meteorologist Misha Shade for a look at that forecast for tomorrow. Misha, help folks time things out because the time you go vote may depend whether or not you got rain going on outside. Exactly. That's what I'm here for, to try to help you navigate through what could be a messy and stormy election day. At least tonight things are calm and quiet, but... We can't say the same for our friends in North Texas. Check out this line of strong to severe storms approaching Dallas right now. Tornado watch just to the west of Dallas through about 11 p.m. If you jump up to parts of Oklahoma, you can see another tornado watch This one goes all the way out through 3 a.m., and that one does include the city of Tulsa. So big-time storms tonight could produce damaging wind, a few tornadoes. That cold front that's helping to trigger the severe weather tonight will roll through our area for Election Day tomorrow. And although Houston is not included in the severe threat right now, it does include Livingston, Shepherd, and Liberty. It's a low 1 out of 5 possible risk. So it's not a super high threat. It's about a 2%, 2% tornado threat, 5% 60 mile per hour wind or damaging wind threat for some of our eastern counties, but it's still there. So make sure that you are staying alert tomorrow. Make sure you have a way to get warnings, watches if we get any, and just plan on having a little patience if you're heading out to vote because of course the roads could be wet, there could be a few flooded streets, and you may have to wait in some downpours as you're trying to vote. As far as the front tonight, it is still just to the east of Amarillo and it's a huge drop off with the temps about 25 degrees cooler up towards Amarillo compared to where we are in Houston and Austin and Dallas. We're still closer to 80 where Amarillo is closer to 50. So it does get cooler behind this front. But of course, before we get to the cooler air, we've got to get through a round of rain and storms. So when will the storms arrive? Let's go to our Fox weather model to help us out. This is the hour by hour track 10 a.m. showing a thin line of rain and storms pushing through Navasota, College Station, Brenham. So if you're going out to vote in Houston, Sugar Land, Pearland around 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., I think you're okay. Most of the action will be off to the west and northwest. Now, if you're planning to head out closer to 11 a.m., lunchtime, noon, 1 p.m., showers will likely be increasing for much of Harris County. You can see around 2, 3 p.m. that cold front rolling in. If you are going out to vote in Galveston, Lake Jackson, around 4, 5, 6 o'clock. That's not going to be the greatest time. That's when you're going to have the heaviest downpours rolling in. So if you're in the coastal spots, it's probably better to go a little earlier to vote. And if you're northwest of Houston, the front will have cleared for much of the afternoon. So you may want to wait until the afternoon hours or go really early. By 9 o'clock tomorrow, the rain is starting to leave all of us alone. And we'll have that high pressure building in. That will set the stage for that cooler and drier air. We're talking about temps likely in the 50s for Wednesday. morning as that fall chill finally makes a comeback. As far as rain, doesn't look super impressive. Our Fox Weather model showing likely most spots picking up less than an inch of rain through this event through tomorrow night, but it's the strong storms that may pop up and put out a brief two, three inches of rain. That's where we could have a little bit of street flooding. So it's isolated flooding and it's mainly east of Houston for places like Shepherd, Liberty, Chambers County, but it's still a risk. So we just want you to be aware. All right, Breaking down your election day planner, your forecast. 8 a.m., a few showers, especially off to the northwest. Temps in the middle 70s around lunchtime. The rain, storm threat increasing across Harris County, including the Houston Metro. And by 3, 4 o'clock, still a decent chance for storms. But by tomorrow evening, those storms will be rolling out. This is what we get to enjoy behind this front. How about 53 in Huntsville Wednesday morning, 56 for you in the Woodlands, 58 in Houston. And it's a stretch of 50s. for the next several nights starting on Tuesday night. And we get another front this weekend that could cool us down even more. So finally, we've made it to the part of the year where we are getting these fronts more frequently and we'll get more cool downs more frequently as well.