Despite the fact that the last two weekends have brought near-perfect weather to the Isle, nobody could blame Galvestonians for feeling like we have had more than our share of wet weather lately. Unfortunately, if current forecasts hold, this coming week may be a wet one as well.

Rain is likely to return as early as Monday as yet another in a series of cool fronts moves into the warm, humid air now back in place over southeast Texas. Conditions appear right for heavy thunderstorms as the front nears and the National Weather Service has issued both a Hazardous Weather Outlook and a Flash Flood Watch for southeast Texas, including Galveston County. The good news is that the rains should move through fairly quickly and bring us improving conditions on Tuesday. The bad news is that this is just the first of two rain events likely to impact the area this week.

The second round of rainfall, and of most concern to attendees and sponsors of the Lone Star Bike Rally, will move into the area on Thursday, the first day of the event. Early reports indicate that we may get fairly substantial rains with this system as well.

Now, if some of the models are correct, the rain will again move through fairly quickly, again giving us near ideal weather for Friday through Sunday. Other models, the GFS (Global Fprecast System), in particular, is suggesting that the front may slow down near the Texas coast. This would result in the rain persisting into Friday, and even possibly, Saturday. At the present time, it is a little too soon to tell which models may be correct and whether Friday and Saturday will bring mostly sunny skies for the third weekend in a row, or whether rainy conditions will spoil some of the planned events.

So far, we have been having pretty good luck with our weekend weather. Here's hoping that our luck holds for Halloween and the Bikers. In any event, I'll report back as the Rally nears with an update on how things are looking at that point in time.

Following are links to the Hazardous Weather Outlook and Flash Flood Watch for the Galveston area:

http://forecast.weather.gov/showsigwx.php?warnzone=TXZ238&warncounty=TXC167&firewxzone=TXZ238&local_place1=3+Miles+NW+Hitchcock+TX&product1=Hazardous+Weather+Outlook

http://forecast.weather.gov/showsigwx.php?warnzone=TXZ238&warncounty=TXC167&firewxzone=TXZ238&local_place1=3+Miles+NW+Hitchcock+TX&product1=Flash+Flood+Watch

This is the forecast map for later today:

This map gives the rainfall outlook for Thursday and Friday: