Rain and storms are set to return to Houston on Sunday, and the strongest flooding threat is expected Monday as a slow-moving system feeds tropical moisture into the area. The setup carries only a small chance of becoming a named tropical storm, but it could still dump enough rain to overwhelm streets in the worst spots.
That timing matters because the wet stretch lands squarely on the city’s World Cup festivities and the Germany vs Curacao match at Houston Stadium, when large crowds are already moving around Downtown Houston. A passing shower is possible Sunday morning, but storms are expected to build around noon and peak between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., when lightning and heavy rain are most likely.
The Bay of Campeche system is expected to funnel deep tropical moisture in beginning Sunday, setting up a multiday period that lasts through the early week. Rainfall from Sunday to Tuesday is expected to run from 1 inch to 3 inches overall, with a few places getting 5 inches to 6 inches, which is enough to make a name irrelevant to the impact on the ground. In other words, the forecast danger comes less from whether the system gets a title and more from how long it lingers and how hard it rains once it reaches Houston.
Monday is shaping up as the most troublesome day, with widespread heavy rain and more downpours in the afternoon and the highest street flooding threat in Houston. Tuesday should bring the last round of widespread heavy rain in the morning, with organized thunderstorms expected to move out of southeast Texas by early afternoon. Rain chances may hang around through Juneteenth before Houston turns back to another hot and humid stretch after the holiday.
For people headed to FIFA Fan Festival, the safety rules are straightforward: if lightning is detected within an eight-mile radius, fans will have to leave the grounds and move to a safe location. The gates can reopen after 30 minutes without another strike inside that radius, and the clock starts over with each new lightning strike. That makes the next two days less a question of whether Houston gets rain and more a question of how much of the city, and how many events, can keep moving through it.
