00:00Well, we're tracking trouble along the Texas coast, and actually there's an area of low pressure spinning over parts of
00:06northeastern Mexico that will likely drift over the far western gulf, and we've already seen flooding.
00:14We've seen a lot of water rescues Monday morning in San Antonio and Austin and in between, but the risk
00:20is escalating for more flooding into parts of the Texas coast, Louisiana, and into more of the southeast as well
00:27in the coming days.
00:29Let's take a look at what's going on out there. Here we have our zone of low pressure, and I'm
00:33going to plot it as low. Still over land, it's likely to drift in this fashion here, and if it
00:41drifts far enough east, then it will move out over parts of the gulf, and that would allow for this
00:48system to organize.
00:49It wouldn't take much for this to organize, with the center of circulation drifting just a little over the northwest
00:55corner of the gulf in the days to come.
00:57We've been dealing with a lot of flooding, and before we looked too far ahead, I wanted to show you
01:02five-day rainfall amounts.
01:04Most of this has fallen recently, but overall, some of these spots in red, over four or five inches of
01:12rain.
01:12There have been many water rescues in the area near Austin and even south of there, but between Austin and
01:19Waco, some of these spots have been hit very hard, and also some pockets into areas around Bonweir, Texas, and
01:26up into areas south of Texarkana and near Shreveport as well.
01:31So if we get a little more specific, just in the past 24 hours, you can see we've had 3
01:36.31 inches in Austin, 2.46 in San Antonio, and this stretch along Interstate 35 has been hit hard, and
01:43all the way up to the north as well.
01:45So that's been a concern. A lot of this ground is saturated. Flood alerts in various forms have been on
01:52the map here, and we're going to get very heavy rain to continue with this system.
01:57Now, there is some wind shear. There's some extra wind shear out here over parts of the Gulf, but keep
02:03in mind, the area where this is going to track will likely be a little bit northwest of the strongest
02:10wind shear and over this coastal part of Texas, where we may see some opportunity for development.
02:17And if you're curious, the water temps, we're getting to that time of the year where the shallower waters of
02:21the Gulf are warm enough.
02:22Well, often we regard kind of 79 to 80 degrees as the minimum threshold to support tropical development if the
02:29ingredients are otherwise in place.
02:31And you can see all these areas here in the Gulf. Check that box. We're 80 plus, 82 near Brownsville,
02:3881 southeast of Galveston.
02:40And it is indeed warm enough. So, hey, we're going to take a look at the modeling here, but overall,
02:45big picture.
02:46We are going with a high risk, a high risk for tropical development into a tropical rainstorm, maybe even an
02:53officially organized tropical depression,
02:56and perhaps beyond that, a tropical storm.
02:58But regardless of the true classification, the impacts are the key that we're very concerned about.
03:05So I'm going to return to the graphics in a couple of moments here as we look at the impacts.
03:10But I wanted to give you an idea of the storm center and where it is likely headed.
03:15And here you can see this closed contour, that circle there, over an area west of Harlingen, Texas.
03:22That is the GFS plot for this storm this Monday night.
03:27And you'll notice the center of it, it's not a tightly wound system, but it runs real close to the
03:32Texas coast.
03:34And you can see the wind barbs.
03:38I'm going to just kind of draw them to illustrate.
03:41And you can see that there's a center of circulation very close to the Galveston Bay.
03:45Will it fully move over the water?
03:47We're hedging our bets as if it will.
03:49Here's the NAM.
03:51The NAM does do that.
03:52And actually, it takes it so far east that it may be a little farther offshore than we might expect.
04:00But overall, you can see broad flow on the east side of this, driving plenty of moisture up into parts
04:06of Louisiana.
04:07And here's the European model with a similar tune.
04:10This does take it decisively offshore.
04:13And you can see that's an east-northeast wind.
04:16So clearly, your center of circulation in the world of the European would be well offshore.
04:22And that would be a scenario that almost certainly would organize into a tropical depression or stronger if it comes
04:29that far east.
04:29So let's take a look at a few different models, including those, but also a few others, taking you from
04:34around 20,000 feet down to the ground.
04:37And you can see the center of circulation here plotted with an L.
04:42And it would be a weak system, 1003.
04:44But it's not about the intensity of the barometric pressure.
04:47It's about the moisture.
04:48And here's a 1003 low.
04:50It's a pretty weak system, but the moisture flux, the drive of gulf moisture abundantly into Texas would lead to
04:58disastrous flooding in some communities there with dangerous potential for 8 to 12 inches of rain.
05:04That's Wednesday and Thursday.
05:06That's the GFS.
05:08Here is the NAM.
05:10And that also is producing a limited system in intensity.
05:14It's probably a little shy in the intensity of the rain on shore.
05:17Here's the European.
05:18Remember, the European is farther out, just offshore.
05:22The surface low, around 10.04.
05:25But that would be some very heavy rain into the area around Houston.
05:28It just so happens to dump some extremely heavy rain, 7 or 8 inches, in just a 6-hour window
05:34over Houston.
05:35That would be a big problem, a huge problem, Wednesday night into Thursday.
05:39And even a second 6-hour window in which Harris County, that'd be nasty stuff, would be seeing 6 or
05:46more inches.
05:46That would be kind of a worst-case scenario for Houston.
05:49Here's the GFS AI, which takes the heaviest rain a little east of there.
05:54And then the European AI sibling.
05:56And then here's the Canadian, one of the Canadian members.
05:59And I think this is maybe a little bit out to lunch here, not cohesively bringing us a very significant
06:06storm.
06:06But the deep maroons here on this graphic and that magenta, that is really high-octane moisture, very significant moisture
06:14that would bring tremendous amounts of rain to the area.
06:17So let's take a look at the big picture here with our graphics.
06:21Heaviest rain through Tuesday night before this even spins up.
06:24We're looking at some areas seeing 4 to 8 inches between Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday night.
06:29We're midway to two-thirds of the way through that event.
06:32But we got more coming with this likely becoming a tropical rainstorm or a depression near the Texas coast.
06:38And on top of that previous graphic, here we are with some very dangerous flooding.
06:43We hit reset Tuesday night, another 8 to 12 inches from Houston into southwest Mississippi through the rest of the
06:49week.
06:49Dangerous situation. Stay with us.
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