Anyone watching a radar this afternoon will have seen a line of thunderstorms moving toward Houston from central Texas. While these storms have weakened somewhat, and should continue to do so, they are strong enough to produce moderate to heavy rains as they move eastward. A flood advisory is now in effect for the Brenham area.
It’s not even June 1 and the Atlantic basin has already recorded two tropical systems in 2016—Hurricane Alex back in January, and Tropical Storm Bonnie last weekend. Some readers might be concerned that this augurs a particularly busy hurricane season, which officially begins Tuesday, but that is not necessarily the case.
That’s because there is little to no correlation between seasons with at least one tropical cyclone (tropical depression, tropical storm, or a hurricane) prior to June 1 in a calendar year, and that season’s overall activity. The following chart, with data since 1950, was recently shared by The Weather Channel’s Michael Lowry.
Good morning to you after a fine Memorial Day weekend, when we rememberd those who died serving our country. We are all indebted to all of them. Today I’m going to take a final look at last week’s flooding, and what lies ahead.
FLOODS
As Braniff explained this weekend, Houston saw two days of large mesoscale convective systems (MCS) that were driven by backbuilding storms. On Thursday the heaviest rains were concentrated over the Brenham area, and on Friday the region saw more widespread rainfall. Here’s a false-color satellite view of the hard-hit northwest part of the Houston metro region on Saturday afternoon that shows the dramatic swelling of the Brazos River, and flooded watersheds between Katy and Hockley. Click the image to enlarge.
So far, Memorial Day weekend has been exactly what the doctor ordered for our area. At least we’ve been able to allow the river systems to move their water without adding new rain. Our window is slowly closing however. The good news is that the rain today looks relatively minor and no new issues are expected.