During my 45 year on-air career in television, there were 2 slow moving storms that stood out for dropping excessive deadly rain totals. In 1997, Hurricane Danny came over us with no big impacts. However, he came to a halt over Mobile Bay dropping 40+" of rain on the western side of the bay. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey roared into Texas as a Cat. 4 storm but stalled inland and stayed for over 2 days. Rain totals were 40-45" causing major damages. Edouard was a moderate Tropical Storm this week, but he too has stalled inland dropping 20-25+" of rain on east Texas.
Often times in late August into mid September, the steering patterns become ill defined in the transition from summer to Fall. Even though we're in an El Nino year that should keep any major hurricanes away from us, these little home grown northern Gulf systems can cause major impacts. We missed any problems from Edouard, but that lingering trough/weakness lingers along the northern Gulf coast.
Water vapor view has an upper low/wave moving our way for Thursday & Friday. There is a weak rotation over Florida around Orlando.
No model develops any of these systems, but it should mean our daily rain chances will continue through this holiday weekend.
Until the upper pattern changes, September over the East will remain hot while the West has cooled down. For the next 10-14 days, the tropics in the Atlantic should stay quiet.
Not so in the Pacific, where we have two Cat. 4 hurricanes and 3 Tropical Storms.
Right now, Hawaii looks to be between Karina going to the north and Lowell staying just to the south. As the MJO heads towards phases 8 & 1, I look for the Atlantic Basin to get active the last two weeks of September into mid October when the cold fronts start coming. Stay tuned!
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