Eric Berger

Harvey weakening, but sending its strongest rains into Houston

This post will provide a brief update on Hurricane Harvey’s official forecast track, and discuss what we’ve seen so far from the storm’s rains in Houston, and what to expect for the rest of the day. We’re still at the “manageable” stage in terms of rainfall, but it won’t take too much to push us into unmanageable.

Harvey

In its 10am CT update, the National Hurricane Center says Harvey remains a hurricane—but only barely so with 75mph winds. It is weakening, but in the process it has thrashed the central Texas coast, from Corpus Christi to Freeport, and inland areas such as Victoria for most of the last day.

From here on out, the official forecast track is basically summarized as follows: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Official National Hurricane Center track forecast at 10am CT on Saturday.

In their discussion, forecasters at the hurricane center wrote, “Based on this pattern, Harvey could easily meander for the next 4 to 5 days over southeast Texas as indicated in the NHC forecast. The only agreement among the track guidance is that Harvey is certainly not going anywhere fast.”

We discussed several scenarios for Harvey’s evolution in a post last night, and that thinking more or less holds up (here the National Hurricane Center is following “The Wandering 59 special”) But theirs is, frankly, a low-confidence track forecast. We will provide a comprehensive update on what we can say about Harvey’s track, and its implications for Texas rainfall early next week, by around 2pm CT today. Basically, our weather for Sunday and beyond depends on where Harvey goes.

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Harvey after dark: What we know after day one

And so it begins … Texas suffered its first major blows from Hurricane Harvey on Friday, as the storm neared the coast and, instead of slowing down, kept moving right along and plowed into the Central Texas coast. It came inland shortly before 10 pm CT as an intense Category 4 hurricane. The early meteorology reports out of Corpus Christi and Rockport are pretty grim. Harvey should now gradually weaken, so long as it remains inland.

What happens now

I understand that some of you appreciate dark humor during these dark times, so I present you with this evening’s spaghetti plot of track models that were initialized at 6pm CT, and came out shortly thereafter. They are nonsensical. I posted them to Twitter with this comment: “Great to see that the latest forecast models are finally getting a good handle on Harvey’s inland track.”

Hurricane Harvey track models. Clear as mud. (Weather Bell)

You have to laugh at times like these, because for a lot of us, the uncertainty, the stress, it can kind of become unbearable. In any case, be glad you’re not a meteorologist trying to make sense of a mess like that. But I am, and so I shall. The first thing to do is simply to ignore that plot.

Secondly, when you look at the major global models, and their ensembles, it seems pretty clear that they think Harvey is going to loop around South Texas, somewhere between Corpus Christi, Victoria, Laredo and South Padre Island, for the next 24 to 48 hours (and dropping prodigious amounts of rain there). After that, the picture becomes more cloudy. When faced with such uncertainty, if you’ve been reading me for any amount of time, you’ll know the way I like to address that is through probability. Let’s revisit last night’s scenarios, shall we?

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After looking at the latest forecast models, we feel pretty bad

Houston residents have started to see rain bands from Hurricane Harvey move onshore today. Unfortunately, this is but a taste of what awaits the city—and the entire Texas coast from south of Corpus Christi through the Beaumont area, as well as inland counties—for several days to come. I’d love nothing more than to write a post expressing some optimism about the rainfall forecast ahead, but as of now it looks really quite grim. So let’s get to it.

Harvey has intensified this afternoon, reaching 120-mph sustained winds and Category 3 status. It should come ashore the central Texas coast near Port Aransas on Saturday morning, by or before sunrise. The storm is going pack a major wallop in terms of both wind and storm surge. Residents in the area should have completed their preparations and evacuated, because conditions are starting to deteriorate. It is a life-threatening situation for people who have remained behind in low-lying areas between Corpus Christi and Matagorda.

Hurricane Harvey is coming. And unfortunately, he isn’t going anywhere. (NOAA)

Beyond Harvey’s landfall the situation remains a mess. An absolute mess. Last night we talked about three different scenarios for Harvey’s movement, post-landfall. And honestly, all three of them remain in play. The most important thing to understand is that our confidence in Harvey’s post-landfall track remains very low. Unfortunately the most likely scenario now is that Harvey isn’t going anywhere, any time soon. Therefore, we can say with high confidence that Harvey will produce a [googles a synonym for ‘sh–load’] large amount of rainfall over Texas.

Expect floods. Lots of flooding.

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Hurricane Harvey nears Texas, but may move back offshore

If you’ve read this site carefully over the last 24 hours, you’ll recall that I’ve been discussing a scenario I’m calling the “Euro special.” (See, for example, here and here). Under this scenario, Harvey makes landfall along the central Texas coast, dithers around for a day or two, and then moves eastward, back over the Gulf of Mexico. During its latest run the GFS model latched onto this scenario, bringing Harvey back into the Gulf, before the system eventually moves north-northeast toward Houston or Beaumont, getting drawn toward a trough of low pressure in the Midwestern United States.

As of their most recent update, the professional hurricane forecasters at the National Hurricane Center have bought into this scenario, with some caution. “At this time it is too early to say whether the center will definitely re-emerge over the northwestern Gulf of Mexico,” Robbie Berg wrote in the 10am discussion. Here’s the track they went with:

Zoomed track forecast for Harvey at 10am CT Friday. (National Hurricane Center)

Some thoughts

Such a track raises a number of unpleasant possibilities. In the interest of a free and frank discussion, you’ll have to indulge some speculation with this post. But this is a mature audience that seems to appreciate honesty. So here goes.

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