any correlation: summer rain to autumn hurricane?

[Deputy Van Halen]

I caught a glance of the weather report on the Houston TV station tonight. They were discussing the recent rain and they had a graphic which listed the five wettest Julys in history, showing that July 2007 was close to breaking into the Top Five.

I noticed that three of the five on the list were notorious hurricane years for this area: 1900, 1943 (the "Surprise Hurricane") and 1961 (Carla). Is this just a coincidence? Or is there some reason to expect a correlation between these two phenomena?

[Cyclone1]

Hmmm... that is pretty interesting. What were the other years?

[marcane_1973]

My news channel here in N.C. had a story tonight similar to this saying that the month of August and September were going to bad for the Caribbean and the GOM because the jet stream is going to a major shift soon and be as far north as Canada allowing storms to form in the same areas as in 2005. he said we could see a repeat of the same scenerio with the high pressure allowing storms to track into the GOM making the GOM the main target for the rest of the season. Ohhh.....and the East coast could be out of the woods for rest of the season. Season over for the East coast he seems to think for 2007 This was some guy who worked for NOAA out of Texas. He said Similar years with the state of Texas getting a lot of heavy rain and flooding in the summer made for bad Hurricane years for the GOM and the East coast escapes it all for the most part. Guess we will have to see if this guys theory all plays out.

[weatherrabbit_tx]

just wondering where the bermuda high was during those two major hurricanes: 1900 and carla 1961, with carla, it tried to buck the high pressure however the high didn't move till finally it was in the texas coastal waters, been reading that the high is going to be strong this year and depends on the position of it and a big "if" on how the upper level pattern is then too.

[peabodyelephant]

I caught a glance of the weather report on the Houston TV station tonight. They were discussing the recent rain and they had a graphic which listed the five wettest Julys in history, showing that July 2007 was close to breaking into the Top Five.

I noticed that three of the five on the list were notorious hurricane years for this area: 1900, 1943 (the "Surprise Hurricane") and 1961 (Carla). Is this just a coincidence? Or is there some reason to expect a correlation between these two phenomena?

greatb post!

[Ptarmigan]

I caught a glance of the weather report on the Houston TV station tonight. They were discussing the recent rain and they had a graphic which listed the five wettest Julys in history, showing that July 2007 was close to breaking into the Top Five.

I noticed that three of the five on the list were notorious hurricane years for this area: 1900, 1943 (the "Surprise Hurricane") and 1961 (Carla). Is this just a coincidence? Or is there some reason to expect a correlation between these two phenomena?

I was thinking that too. July 1900 was the wettest on record. Two months later, The Great Galveston Hurricane made landfall. July 1943 was from the Surprise Hurricane. July 1942 was the second wettest and in August, two hurricanes made landfall 9 days apart, they were listed as Category 1 hurricanes and one of them was at least a Cat. 3 while offshore. It produced 15 foot storm surge. June and July of 1961 were among the wettest on record, in which Hurricane Carla made landfall in September of that year.

Upper Texas Coast Hurricanes 1940s

Top 10 For June
Wettest
19.21 2001**
18.33 2004*
16.28 1989** *
15.85 1919**
14.66 1960
13.46 1973*
12.08 1993**
11.18 1968
11.11 1961*
10.67 1889

*=Hurricane Made Landfall Later On.
**=Tropical Storm/Hurricane Made Landfall That Month.

June Extremes For Houston

Top 10 For July
Wettest
14.80 1900*
14.10 1942*
13.53 1943**
10.07 1961*
10.04 1955
9.39 1939
8.41 1916
8.17 1959**
8.10 1979** *
7.97 1933*

*=Hurricane Made Landfall Later On.
**=Tropical Storm/Hurricane Made Landfall That Month.

July Extremes For Houston

[CIRRUS5]

Interesting discovery. Houston is in the middle of one of the top ten wettest Julys on record. In researching the top ten prior wettest years, I found that 9 out of 10 involved a storm strike somewhere along the Texas coast. 3 of the nine were tropically induced rainfall totals, but 6 of the 9 were not and involved strikes in August and September including Carla and the Great Galveston Storm of 1900. Just some food for thought.

[caneman]

thread on this already here.

http://storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php ... 1e1472f0e1

[CIRRUS5]

That's a strange coincidence as well. Sorry. Didn't see it. I'm a rookie here.

[m_ru]

Shhhh. Don't scare me. I live in a house with a creekbed full of huge water oaks to my east and southeast. An inland hurricane would rip us up and spit us out. Huntsville recorded hurricane force gusts in Alicia and she was only a borderline cat2/cat3 if I'm remembering correctly.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Makes sense. A wet summer implies either an upper low being rather persistent around Texas, and/or tropical waves coming rather far to the North. This year, more the former than the latter, but last weeks big raisn was the upper low entraining the tropical disturbance that went inland around Tampico.

So when conditions become more favorable for waves to develop, they are already generally favoring a path this direction.


I have noticed the recent Texas rains along the coast, and I suppose higher than normal river flow, has cooled the Gulf offshore Texas significantly.

[Wolfray1]

I have read all the above with interest. 1996 and 1999 were very active years for tropical storms and hurricanes here in NC. Both summers had above normal rainfall. Just luck or is there really something to this theory?

[southerngale]

The HOUSTON JULY RAINFALL AND TROPICAL ACTIVITY thread has been combined with this one.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Dry w/ lower than usual dewpoints in Houston today into Wednesday, so no significant additional rains expected, but by Thursday into Friday, supposedly a new trough starts to develop, and the wave approaching the Yucatan should add enough moisture (forecast PW near 2.2 inches) for more rain, so Houston may make the Top 5.

[Shoshana]

On this strange theme, I was looking at our current Jan/July rain totals here in Austin.

The wettest January to July periods... with 2007 listed from the 1st
of January to 7 am July 24th follows. The average yearly rain is
also listed for the 1971 to 2000 30 year normals and the long term
average rainfall.

Austin Mabry

1. 1919 42.71
2. 1900 38.69
3. 1941 34.76
4. 2007 34.60... through 7 am July 24th, 2007
5. 1981 34.02

Austin Mabry yearly rainfall information...
the 1971 to 2000 30 year normal is 33.65... and
the 1856 to 2006 long term average is 33.48.

Austin Bergstrom

1. 2007 38.13... through 7 am July 24th, 2007

So, I was thinking of this thread and checked - sure enough,

1919 - A Cat 4 hurricane hit the lower Texas coast in the first 2 weeks of September

1900- Galveston Hurricane also in the first 2 weeks of September

1941- (actually, since it's currently raining we might bust this record today) a TS in the first 2 weeks of Sept (TX/LA border) and a Cat 1 in the second half of September on the Middle coast.

And all this could be coincidence...