Eric Berger

Wednesday, 7:50am CT—It is an absolutely amazing morning in Houston—humidity is low for August, temperatures are in the low 70s, and the sun can be seen as it rises above the eastern horizon. The only trace of our recently departed Hurricane Harvey is some northwesterly winds gusting into the mid-20s. But even those should die down today.

Speaking of Harvey, the storm has made its final landfall this morning, and is now located near Lake Charles, La. The storm continues to lash the Beaumont and Port Arthur area with rains (because clearly Harvey has a seething hatred for all things Texas), and they are seeing similar conditions as Houston earlier this week. Those areas should begin clearing later today too as Harvey moves steadily northeast. Let’s discuss the forecast, and also address the concerns some of you have about tropical weather next week.

Today

Skies will be partly sunny, and we expect high temperatures to rise into the upper 80s. Rain chances should be near zero. Brisk northwesterly winds will help drain bayous, too.

The National Weather Service this morning urged people not to “sightsee” in damaged areas as the weather improves, and I would echo these sentiments. There are still dangers in some areas—and let’s be honest, if your home was destroyed would you want gawkers coming by to survey the damage? Heck no. Respect your fellow citizens, and the first responders taking the first steps to getting our city on the road to recovery.

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Tuesday, 7:00pm—It’s over. The weather, that is.

Since Friday, Harvey has moved into Texas, meandered around the area between Corpus Christi and Houston, moved offshore, and is now moving steadily to the east. It’s taking its godforsaken rain with it. The meteorological event has now ended, but unfortunately this is only the end of the beginning. Now comes the hard part, putting our city back together. We’ll have much more on that later.

For now, we’re exhausted, just like everyone else. We’re sick and tired of the rain, just like everyone else. So this will be a quick forecast.

Light rain has been falling across Brazoria, Galveston, and eastern Harris County late this afternoon and evening, but rates have been easily manageable at 0.10 inch per hour—this is less than 50 times the rainfall rates seen during the peak of Harvey. Overnight this western periphery of Harvey’s rains should continue to move east, hopefully pushing through Liberty and Chambers counties by or before sunrise.

For Wednesday, we can’t rule out some rain showers (the southwestern edge of Harvey) rotating through the area, but we don’t anticipate any widespread flooding from these problems. In fact, on Tuesday night and Wednesday, in absence of heavy rainfall, we should see fairly rapid falls in most area bayous.

Mostly sunny conditions should prevail from Thursday through Saturday, with highs in the low 90s, during which Houston can get to work on cleaning itself up. There is much to be done. Can’t rule out some showers, but there won’t be anything too concerning.

We’ve seen some concerns about the GFS model showing the development of a low-pressure system over the Gulf of Mexico next week, and blowing up some potentially heavy rain over the eastern half of Houston by late Monday or Tuesday of next week. While there’s a chance for the return of some heavier showers, we’re not too concerned about this. We’ll have more on that in the morning.

For now when you go to bed tonight, wherever you are, enjoy the thought of not waking up to thunder, pulsating rain, or tornado alarms. Finally.

Tuesday, 11am CT—There is some good news in the latest update from the National Hurricane Center on Harvey’s position and movement—the storm is off the coast to the southeast of Galveston, and it is moving a bit faster (5 mph) to the east northeast. This means it is definitively moving away from the greater Houston area, and the rains are going to end. But we’re not across the finish line yet. This post will also take a quick look at some area waterways, and address rumors about “another hurricane.”

Forecast

Steady moderate to heavy rains are falling over the eastern half of the Houston area, especially for coastal areas including Galveston and Texas City. These should continue throughout the day, on and off, as Harvey slowly lifts away from the region. This updated rainfall forecast map from the National Weather Service shows that, from this point forward Harvey is far more likely to affect the eastern half of the region (3 to 8 inches more) than the western half of the region (1 to 3 inches at the most).

We are probably about 24 hours away from a general cessation of rainfall, including for most of the eastern half of the Houston area. It’s been an absolutely miserable four or five days, but it’s almost over

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Monday, 6:15pm CT—It’s been a wet day across an already waterlogged Houston, and unfortunately we can probably expect similar conditions to continue through the night. During the day we have seen a lot of dry enter into Harvey’s circulation along its eastern side, but unfortunately this has yet to substantially affect the convection on Harvey’s northwest side—which just happens to be continuously dumping rainfall on Houston.

This pattern has allowed Harvey to drop 3 to 8 inches of rain across most of the Houston metro area during daylight hours today, with the heaviest rains in northern Brazoria County and Southern Harris County.

Because Harvey is only moving to the east-southeast very slowly, about at the pace of a slow walk, we can probably expect this pattern to continue for tonight, and into Tuesday morning. For the most part these aren’t excessively heavy rains, but even rainfall rates of 1 inch an hour will cause bayous and floodwaters to rise if they persist long enough. Therefore, while we don’t expect floodwaters to rise rapidly tonight, steady, moderate rains could cause slow rises in bayous. This is about exactly what the Houston region doesn’t need right now.

As far as accumulations, the National Weather Service predicts that the following areas of Houston could get as much rainfall as the amounts shown in this graphic during the next 24 hours, through 7pm Tuesday. I’m hoping these totals are little high, but we can’t rule them out.

Looking for some good news? We have a little bit of that. The favorable area for tornado formation is moving to the east, so we should have fewer tornado warnings tonight, and then fewer to none on Tuesday. Also, we feel fairly confident that the potential for prolonged, heavy rainfall will end sometime on Wednesday, during the afternoon or evening hours.

Matt will have another update later tonight.

Posted by Eric at 6:15pm CT on Monday