What’s left of Hurricane Harvey has started to move back to the SE with NHC pegging motion SE at 3 mph. That will bring the center of circulation back over the waters of the Gulf during the day on Tuesday before (if the models are correct) turning back towards the north and heading up just east of Houston on Tuesday. What does that means for us? Probably more rainfall than the original (3-5”) projections with the new additional totals in the 5-10” range. Remember, those amounts will be spread out over 3 days so, aside from some minor street flooding, our pumps should be able to handle it. The videos coming out of Houston are pretty scary, but I am not seeing those kinds of amounts (20-30”) here. Could Harvey strengthen? Sure, but not back into a major Hurricane like before simply because his circulation has been disrupted over land plus the offshore waters have cooled some and he will not have enough time over water to regain the kind of intensity he had before. What we should be on the lookout for are training bands of rain that will line up north to south around Harvey’s circulation. Some folks could get a lot while others not so much. This remains just a rain/flood threat here as I do not anticipate the damaging winds that hit south Texas. What we might see on Monday is a tornado watch as Harvey inches closer. The heaviest of the rains will stay to our west, especially if Harvey’s center begins a motion to the north. Do I remember another storm like Harvey? Absolutely. Hurricane Danny back in 1997 sat over the east side of Mobile Bay for 3 days draining all the water out of the Bay until he drifted back to the west. Rain totals on the west side of the Bay were 40-45”. When tropical systems stall and hang around for days, record flooding occurs. I’m just thankful nothing like that has happened over us during my 4 decades here…YET. If I live long enough, (another 10-20 years) I’m sure it will happen. For the moment, it still is a Texas problem.
Irma will probably be named shortly as NHC has made the area east of Florida “Potential Tropical Cyclone #10. There is that wave coming off of Africa, but that’s so far away. Let’s keep focusing on Harvey.
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