Tropical rainstorm to bring heavy rain to Texas

AccuWeather

Coastal flooding will be possible in Texas as a tropical rainstorm makes its way into northern Mexico this week.

Transcript

00:00All right, joining me right now is AccuWeather leave hurricane expert Alex DeSilva as we

00:05continue to dissect our tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico or the Bay of Campeche.

00:11And Alex, as we take a look, and we'll get right to the satellite picture here, tell

00:16me what you see here on the infrared satellite.

00:20Well, right now I see a pretty disorganized system.

00:23This tropical rainstorm moved over the Bay of Campeche yesterday.

00:26It has started to organize a little bit, but you can see we're not really seeing the big

00:29blow-up of thunderstorms right around the center of circulation.

00:33That's how we really get an intensifying storm.

00:35The storm is what we call not vertically stacked.

00:38So the low-level circulation down near the surface is in one area, and the mid-level

00:42circulation is a little bit off to the east.

00:45You really need that vertically stacked nature to get strengthening.

00:49And the one thing I notice, Alex, right now, everything's on the eastern side, not necessarily

00:54under the center.

00:55And on the western side, virtually cloudless, and I'm sure that dry air that's been persistent

01:02in that area the last day or two is certainly having an impact as well.

01:07It's certainly having an impact.

01:08We're still dealing with a little bit of wind shear in the Bay of Campeche here.

01:11While it is decreasing, there is still a little bit there, and what that's doing is it's sucking

01:16in or forcing that dry air into the center of the storm right now.

01:20So it is being choked off a little bit, and it's struggling right now.

01:23But I do think that with time, that wind shear is going to continue to decrease.

01:28You can see a little bit of a pocket there in the Bay of Campeche there of low wind shear.

01:32I think that's going to just grow here over the next 24 to 36 hours.

01:37It should give this storm a little bit of a window here to gain organization before

01:41moving inland.

01:42You know, let's talk about wind shear a little bit.

01:44It may be a concept that may sound a little confusing, and we're always talking about

01:48the storm being vertically stacked.

01:51You just mentioned that earlier, and it's all because of wind shear.

01:55That's the key here.

01:56Yeah, it is.

01:57And I always like to think of it kind of like a stack of pancakes.

01:59So think of each one of these rings as a stack of pancakes.

02:01Now the tropical system, they like to strengthen and essentially stand vertically stacked.

02:06So those pancakes are vertically stacked.

02:08They're not flopping over onto the floor.

02:10Now when you get a lot of wind shear, it can disrupt that circulation, and those stacks

02:15of pancakes essentially flop over onto the floor.

02:18So that's what the hurricanes don't like.

02:21They don't like to have a circulation where it's not vertically stacked because they cannot

02:26strengthen that way.

02:27So for this system here, we need the wind shear to decrease, and then the system will

02:31become more vertically stacked, which will then lead to more organization.

02:36When do we think, when are you projecting that this becomes a tropical storm, Alex?

02:40I mean, it could happen as early as late this afternoon, if not tomorrow.

02:44The wind speeds are there.

02:45Right now, we're dealing with wind speeds of around 40 miles per hour, which is strong

02:49enough to classify this as a tropical storm.

02:51The only real piece that's missing right now is that organization.

02:54The storm needs to become vertically stacked in order for it to be classified as a tropical

02:59storm.

03:00So like I said, it could happen anywhere within the next 24 hours, I think.

03:04Let's get to where this is going.

03:05I have the upper air pattern here, and you can see that big upper high.

03:08That arrow drawn here is that, well, you're going to see the upper highs start to shift

03:12to the northeast, but Alex, it kind of strengthens, and this high, in a sense, exerts its force

03:19on this tropical system.

03:21It sure does.

03:22This is the high that's responsible for all the heat in the Midwest and into the northeast.

03:26There's a tropical connection with this thing.

03:28So big clockwise spin around the high, and then you have your tropical system coming

03:32up from the south.

03:33That is going to cause pretty strong winds there over the Gulf of Mexico, and actually

03:37an onshore push of winds and rough surf along the Texas and Louisiana coast here throughout

03:43the week as the system begins to slowly move north and then make a hard turn to the left

03:48here over the next couple of days.

03:50Accuweather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva, thanks Alex for joining us.

03:55We'll talk to you a little later on this morning.

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