SE TX / SW LA Discussion - Hot! Hot! Hot!

[JenBayles]

I woke up this morning around 5:00 to some of the most intense and continuous lightning and thunder I've ever experienced. While it was nice to just stay under the covers and not have to get up and about, I kept waiting for a bolt to hit the house. The dogs were convinced it had already happened.

[jasons2k]

From Jeff:

Our daily rains got going early today with widespread coverage already this morning. Parts of the county have already picked up 1-2 inches this morning leading to street flooding problems. Additional storms are firing off along the coast and will spread inland through the mid to late morning. Wet pattern will remain anchored over the area through Saturday as PWS remain over 2.0 inches and trigger temps. stay around the low to mid 80’s. Trigger temps. on Saturday may rise slightly suggesting a later start to the madness (maybe 1100-100pm) instead of in the morning. We may see a slight amount of drying Sunday with a reduced rain chance, but chances are on the rise for all of next week…in fact next week looks very unsettled as the tropics come into play.

Scattered storms should result Monday through Wednesday before a strong tropical wave currently over the E Caribbean Sea enters the Gulf of Mexico and heads for the TX and Mexican coasts late next week. GFS is forecasting a surge in tropical moisture late Wednesday with PWS rising to near 2.45 inches suggesting a nearly saturated air column. Clearly this will be of concern with the threat for excessive rainfall. Would also not totally discount the potential for some development of this wave as it moves through the Gulf of Mexico even though global models are not forecasting such.

Note:
It has rained every day in Harris County since July 1st and 17 out of the last 20 at IAH. The wet period began around June 14th and out of those 36 days, 27 have had measurable rainfall. The Jan –July 19th period is the 7th wettest period on record for that time frame with a total of 37.07 inches falling. IAH has recorded 6.99 inches of rainfall so far for July which is well above average. The wettest July on record occurred in 1900 with 14.80 inches of rainfall.

Tropics:
Overall pattern change in the upper air flow appears at least possible over the next 1-2 weeks. Deep troughing along the US E coast should lift out and be replaced with large scale ridging extending from the E Atlantic all the way into the Gulf of Mexico. This shifts the threat area and tracks of any tropical cyclones toward the west and the Gulf of Mexico. Main question is how long this pattern will remain locked in place and will there be anything in the tropics while the Gulf is vulnerable. Such patterns can lock into place for months, and if this is the case, will not bode well for the US Gulf coast as we head into the active months of hurricane season.

[Extremeweatherguy]

Talk about non-stop rain! I woke up at 5:30am and it was raining then and it is still raining now (over 4 hours later). It doesn't look to stop anytime soon either. I am actually quite surprised that there is no FFW in place for this.

[Johnny]

Great shots jschlitz! I got some good shots down in Galveston Sunday morning with the storms rolling in. If I could figure out how to post them I would. lol

It looks like next week could get real interesting. I won't be here next week...I'll be out in the hill country tubing the Frio!

[svrwx0503]

Man, a tropical system is something that we can really do without right now. If we saw even a rather minor hurricane move through, there wouldn't be one tree left standing across the Houston area . If I remember correctly, one of the reasons for all of the tree damage from Alicia was because the ground was saturated when she made landfall.

[Extremeweatherguy]

I agree. Any type of high wind event would be damaging right now. Even prolonged periods of 40-60mph gusts (as can be seen during a moderate/strong TS landfall) would be very serious. I don't even want to think what would happen during a hurricane though. Hurricane force winds would uproot thousands of shallow-rooted trees across the area and add to that the pines that would also snap and all the wind/water damage..and we could be looking at a nasty situation. Let's just pray that we can dry out some before we are threatened by any kind of storm (weak or strong) this season.

[Ed Mahmoud]

OK, unlikely, but the big mass of storms over Texas, from the interaction of an upper low and a weak tropical low that came inland near Tampico a few days ago, has hardly drifted anywhere at all. And it almost has the suggestion of some anticyclonic flow aloft.

Steering is obviously weak. Be interesting if that did what Allison in 2001 did, drift back toward the Gulf, mosey offshore, and then come back towards Louisiana.

Not that I'm saying that is going to happen.

"I'm not a professional met, nor do I play one on TV"

[matigre]

Johnny-- re: Frio today-- a tube trip which usually takes us 3.5 hours (the river house to the Pecan Farm) took us an hour yesterday-- make sure you take out your tuber insurance at Josh's and look forward to beautiful rock-bottom bruising!

[srainhoutx]

Great shots jschlitz! I got some good shots down in Galveston Sunday morning with the storms rolling in. If I could figure out how to post them I would. lol

It looks like next week could get real interesting. I won't be here next week...I'll be out in the hill country tubing the Frio!

FYI Johnny...


000
FXUS64 KEWX 202128
AFDEWX

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AUSTIN/SAN ANTONIO TX
428 PM CDT FRI JUL 20 2007

.DISCUSSION...
HEAVY RAIN EVENT SHOWING HIGHEST TOTALS CLOSE TO WHERE MODEL QPF
LOCATIONS WERE PROJECTED FROM THE MORNING RUNS, BUT ROUGHLY 3
TIMES THE AMOUNTS. HIGHEST THREATS WILL AFFECT ALONG AND 40 MILES
EITHER SIDE OF I-10 N OF SAT AND I-37 S OF SAT WHERE UP TO 5
INCHES OF RAIN IS POSSIBLE. TRENDS ARE SLOWLY FALLING FOR THE
WIDESPREAD HEAVY RAIN PATTERN THAT TOOK AIM ON GUADALUPE, WILSON,
AND HAYES COUNTIES WHERE A THICK AREA OF STRATIFORM RAINS CONTINUE
TO PRODUCE RATES AROUND HALF AN INCH PER HOUR. EXPECT A GRADUAL
DECREASE THROUGH THE EVENING, BUT DO NOT FEEL THE AIR WILL BECOME
STABLE ENOUGH TO WARRANT A LOWERING OF OVERNIGHT POPS OR ANY
CHANGES TO THE WATCH AREA. FLOOD THREAT WILL TEMPORARILY AFFECT
FRIO COUNTY, BUT THE SANDY SOILS OVER THE WINTER GARDENS SHOULD BE
ABLE TO HANDLE 2-3 INCH RAINS. THUS FFA AREA AND VALID TIME SHOULD
HOLD FOR NOW. THE FORECAST FOR TOMORROW SHOWS CONTINUED HIGH POS
WITH EMPHASIS ON THE WESTERN COUNTIES, BUT THE RAINFALL POTENTIAL
MAY MODIFY BASED ON WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE CONVECTIVE ENVIRONMENT
TONIGHT. WITH THE MOST UNSTABLE AIR SHIFTING WITH THE COOL OUTFLOW
TOWARD THE RIO GRANDE, EXPECT A RAIN ENVIRONMENT MORE LIKE THAT OF
TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY, WITH PWAT VALUES DROPPING BACK TO BELOW 2
INCHES, BUT STILL REMAINING ABOVE 1.8 INHCES.

MODELS SHOW AN INCREASED RIDGE INFLUENCE ALOFT FOR SUNDAY BUT THE
MID LEVEL SUPPORT CONTINUES TO SUPPORT MAINLY DAYTIME RAINS.
ADDITIONAL ENERGY FROM MID LEVEL COOLING AND NORTH WINDS ALOFT
SHOULD ENABLE MORE RAINS TO PERSIST INTO MUCH OF NEXT WEEK. THE
EXTENDED CONTINUES TO SHOW AN UNSETTLED PATTERN WITH MOST MODEL
DATA KEEPING THE UPPER RIDGE FORCED TO THE NORTH AND WEST OF
TEXAS. SINCE THERE REMAINS A GOOD CHANCE OF RAIN EACH DAY WITH
THIS PATTERN, THE EMPHASIS FALLS ON THE BEST CHANCE OF A DRY DAY,
AND THIS WOULD APPEAR TO BE TUESDAY.

be careful

[Extremeweatherguy]

I just heard on the news that so far this is Houston's 9th wettest July EVER! With 11 more days to go, I have a feeling that we could easily reach the top 5. One scary thought to think about though is that the #1 wettest July was in 1900; the year of the big hurricane. Hopefully the current wet July does not equal a similar end result.

[southerngale]

We've got some pretty high July totals in the area so far, with 11 days to go, and more rain expected.

Crystal Beach (Stingaree Rest.).......16.41"
Sabine Pass School.........................11.43"
East Chambers Media Center (Winnie).......10.44"
Helena Park E.S. (Nederland)...........9.81"
Price E.S. (Beaumont).....................8.68"

KFDM (Beaumont).............9.81"



Thanks to Greg for most of those totals.

[vbhoutex]

We are also 11.91" ahead on rain for they year!!! With the current long term forecast we may well be 15" or more ahead before this is over(if it ever is!!!!! )

[Yankeegirl]

That mess out in West Texas, is that moving this way? Im going to work... Maybe it will be raining when I get home... This is the first day that I didnt get woken up by thunder!!

[vbhoutex]

What a beautiful day yesterday. This morning we had storms come through out of the NE. Surprised me. Looking at satellite it looks like we just had a front come through. Very strange for late July!!

[Yankeegirl]

Yesterday was nice, and today is too... Looks like the rainy weather is somewhat drying up over the next few days... Today is nice out too... I almost forgot what the sun looks like!!

[JenBayles]

Well, Dr. Niel just said tomorrow is probably our last dry day. Another ULL is supposed to form over Central Texas....

[vbhoutex]

Well, Dr. Niel just said tomorrow is probably our last dry day. Another ULL is supposed to form over Central Texas....

and we will have tropical waves coming in from the E also. Looks like my son's moving day(thursday)may not be too dry.

[CajunMama]

Thank goodness houston will be dry tomorrow. We're driving in to watch the astro's game. If it's on tv...look for me behind homeplate. We'll be in the diamond club seats!

[Yankeegirl]

I am so jealous of you Mama!!! Have a great time, looks like the rain Gods are going to make it rain a ton Thursday and Friday and just in time for the weekend!!! Have fun, Hope the Astros can give ya a win!!

[srainhoutx]

With light to moderate rain at my location this evening, change in pattern evident via radar loop and SAT LOOPS...


http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid= ... 1&loop=yes

http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/sa ... e&itype=wv

http://adds.aviationweather.noaa.gov/sa ... e&itype=ir

http://wwhttp://www.srh.noaa.gov/tropic ... 4_loop.php

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/tropical/satpix ... 4_loop.php

interesting set up taking place.