If Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial beginning of summer, our weather is certainly going to cooperate. After a few unseasonably cool weeks and a couple good rainstorms to help ease concerns over drought, it appears as though we have finally broken through into typical Houston summer weather. Once we clear through the next couple days when some unstable air could produce a shower or two, the heart of the holiday weekend will be hot and sunny.

Friday and Saturday are forecast to be partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of rain. The same unstable air that has generated the devastating and violent weather across Tornado Alley is still lingering and might generate a shower or two for the Houston area, but chances are low and, if it does, it will more than likely be isolated.

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Courtesy KFOR

In the map above, my mother's house is on Western just north of 119th. My Grandmother's house is just east of Eastern on 12th Street. The red line is the May 3, 1999 tornado. The blue line is the May 8, 2003 tornado and the green line is the May 20, 2013 tornado, which overlapped the path of the 1999 storm.

This summer will mark my 10-year anniversary of moving to Houston. I don't miss Oklahoma often, but the last two days have been particularly hard. I've been glued to the Internet and NPR, absorbing the news with an emotion that can only be described as helplessness.

Moore, Oklahoma, the area hardest hit by the Monday's tornado, is my hometown. Before moving to Houston, I lived in Moore for 23 years. I was born there and graduated high school there. Almost all of my family lived within a one-mile radius. I remember, once or twice a school year for 12 years, having storm drills where we huddled against an inner classroom wall with hardbound books opened over our heads. I remember the tornado sirens being tested at noon every Saturday. During the course of my life my family and friends have been very lucky to have never had a direct hit from a tornado, but there have been some close calls. Monday was probably the closest.

As I am writing this, the death toll of Monday's storms is at 24 and is expected to rise. That includes 9 children.

I've seen and heard so many comments, both earnest and sarcastic, from newscasters, online commenters and even from my own friends on how such a thing could happen in an area so well-known for its storms. I've decided to write an explainer after the jump for those who didn't grow up in Tornado Alley to help address some of those questions. Feel free to leave your own questions in the comments.

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Courtesy Weather.com

It's tough not to think about weather after the devastating tornadoes that hit Oklahoma the last two days. The probably F-5 tornado that struck Moore just south of Oklahoma City could be one of the largest on record, an incredible two miles wide at its peak. Tornadoes are certainly nature's most instantaneously destructive force. Killer, super-sized F-5s can, as we've seen from the heartbreaking footage, level entire towns in a matter of minutes and with very little warning.

Here in Houston, forecasters are not expecting an outbreak of tornadoes. We don't generally have the kind of conditions conducive to forming large twisters, fortunately, but we do have heat and humidity. Both are back in force.

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Run, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt! Run like the wind!

"It's already here!" -- Twister

Overnight in north Texas, a rash of tornadoes killed at least six people and injured many more. There could be another outbreak of twisters tonight as dry, cool air from the north slams into warm Gulf air over Texas. It's unfortunately a common occurrence for an area lovingly referred to as Tornado Alley, which runs from north Texas up through South Dakota and over into Iowa.

If you are wondering why we don't get tornados like they do, Eric Berger at Chron.com gave an excellent overview of how that works on his SciGuy blog. Simply put, they have tornados, we have hurricanes.

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Screengrab via Weather.com.

There comes a time every May where the days start to get a little longer, the temperatures start to get a little hotter and our eyes turn to those big bodies of water flanking us that we've been ignoring the last few months. Hurricane season may start June 1, but the truth is hurricanes form when they damn well please.

If you had May 15 in your "Day the First Tropical Depression Forms" office pool, then it's time to celebrate because right now in the Pacific, there's a storm brewing.

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Get ready because it's coming. We've been pretty spoiled the last month or so with all the cool weather. It's been downright pleasant at times, even in the last two weeks. And while it might be July before we start seeing consistent low to mid 90s high temperatures, summer is definitely here. So if you haven't gotten yourself in bikini shape, I suggest you get a move on.

We got a nice refreshing little shot of cooler air over the weekend after a good dose of rain, most of it along and south of Interstate 10. And even though some areas of town have received as much as 12 inches of rain in the last few weeks, Houston on the whole is still dry because the official monitoring station for rainfall is Bush IAH and areas north of the Loop have remained stubbornly dry.

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Photo by Daniel Aaron

Corner of Washington & Sawyer: Lightless.

If you don't have a window, you might not realize it's 10 p.m. in parts of Houston.

It's a dark and stormy night out there, as Edward George Bulwer-Lytton would say.

Last night saw some major thunderstorm activity, with impressive lightning shows in some parts of town. (This being Houston, other parts of town were dry as a Mormon wedding.)

Activity was mostly to the north last night, but today it looks like a lot of the city is getting hit. In Westbury, for example, it's darker than King Joffrey's tweener heart, but the rain isn't really pouring down. Lots of thunder, though, and some very close lightning strikes, so it might be on its way.

The National Weather Service is warning of quart-size hail and possible street flooding -- you know the routine, Houston. (Which includes checking here for updates and pictures.)

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In case you weren't in Houston this weekend or were living in a cave or not reading social media, it was cold outside. How cold? Well, it was cold enough that four straight days set records in Houston. The 42-degree low on Friday morning set an all-time record low for the month of May. For Houston, that's darn chilly. If you weren't outside in it, I feel sorry for you because we shouldn't expect to see weather like that again until the fall. Between now and then, assume partly cloudy with a chance of sweat.

This week begins rather pleasant, but temperatures will inch up throughout the week. As the weekend approaches, we will see highs in the low to mid 80s and lows climbing up into the upper 60s. At the same time, humidity will begin to increase and the southern flow of moisture from the Gulf will begin invading the region. By late in the week, our chances of rain start to increase and we should see mostly cloudy skies with occasional rain through the weekend.

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Courtesy of Weather Underground

HOLY CRAP!

I am not one to lecture anyone about anything. I know enough to know just how much I don't know, you know? But one thing I will tell you emphatically that, if you are able and not allergic to the rays of the sun, you MUST get outside this weekend. Seriously, this is not a joke, son.

You see, we are in May in Houston. If you are new to these parts, well, that normally means the most common trait shared by citizens is sweatiness. Temperatures are gradually creeping from, "Aw, this is pleasant" to "Oh, God, it's hot" before finally reaching "JUST KILL ME, PLEASE!" levels usually in August. But, this weekend may even find itself in the "Damn, I guess I need a jacket" range.

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The oddball "spring" weather in Houston continues this week, but before I get there, let's recap the rain we had over the weekend. Certain parts of town received as much as 8 inches of rain on Saturday as thunderstorms trained along a warm front. As amazing as it may seem, April will still go down as below normal in rainfall because the official point of collection is at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport and they got only about a quarter inch.

Still, most of the area got between 2 and 3 inches and it was much needed. Some areas west of town even got a decent soaking Sunday and Monday.

As for the remainder of this week, surprisingly we appear to be set for yet ANOTHER shot of cold air on Friday. A cold front should push through Thursday afternoon to early evening and temperatures will begin to drop.

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