Matt Lanza

If you’re a more weather savvy Houstonian, you’ve spent a chunk of the day with a satellite loop of Tropical Storm Barry open in a browser tab, checking it periodically and perhaps feeling a bit uneasy. And that’s completely understandable. The good news is this: Despite what your eyes are telling you, everything, forecast-wise, is still on track, and Barry is expected to move into Louisiana tonight and tomorrow.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

From the above satellite image, you can see the adorable cinnamon bun-esque swirl south of the Louisiana coast today that now appears to be moving back southwest. Believe it or not, that is not center of Tropical Storm Barry. That is what we call a “mesovortex” swirling around the broader center that is to the south and will gradually turn to the northwest tonight. As Barry organizes a little bit healthier tonight, you’ll probably begin to see a slightly more traditional satellite presentation try to evolve. Wind shear will continue to limit how well organized Barry can become, but it would seem likelier than not that Barry becomes a hurricane tonight before making landfall tomorrow near Vermilion Bay. The turn will happen, we just need to be patient.

Impacts are mostly unchanged, with major rains expected to slog inland tonight and tomorrow over Louisiana and Mississippi. Heavy rain is likely between Lafayette and New Orleans, though the more recent rainfall forecast have backed down a bit in NOLA, which is good there, but a lot of rain is going to fall upstream over the Mississippi. Maximum totals should be 15 to 20 inches, probably not far from Baton Rouge.

This morning I discussed the possibility of heavier rain potentially near Galveston or the Bay Area. Basically, we expect some type of inflow band, or an area of converging winds to setup near the coast tomorrow night and much of Sunday. If that happens, locally heavy rain will be possible, particularly along the immediate coast. The rainfall forecast above shows about 1 to 2 inches potentially near Galveston, with less as you come inland. We will have to refine this tomorrow a bit, just in case the heavier rains stay offshore or to our east, or alternatively look heavier over Galveston. For now, in Galveston, expect a forecast of persistent rains on Saturday night and Sunday with occasional showers or clouds inland from there. Saturday is probably a satisfactory beach day, but Sunday may be a loss. We will reassess how things look in the morning and offer you another update then.

The forecast today will be one of heat, followed by a somewhat uncertain outlook this weekend. Let’s walk through things, and then we will touch on Louisiana and Barry.

Today

The expectation right now is that today will be a mostly dry day in Houston. That said, I cannot entirely rule out some showers late this afternoon coming in off the Gulf along the coast or out of Louisiana for folks east of I-45. As long as it stays mostly dry though, it’s going to be awfully hot once again today. We should make a run for the upper-90s.

Heat advisory criteria may come close to being met in parts of the area, so if you’ll be outdoors, please take it easy. Also, keep that in mind if you’ll be on the beach today, as high temperatures in Galveston will likely make a run for the mid-90s with mostly offshore winds.

Tonight

Given the somewhat erratic nature of storms around Barry (see below), as it begins to approach Louisiana tonight, some of the outer fringe that has been fairly supportive of occasional clusters of storms may graze our area. So we will call it partly to mostly cloudy tonight, with a very slight chance of thunderstorms, virtually at anytime. We should know more about those prospects later this afternoon and will update you then.

Saturday

We could have a tale of two types of weather across the Houston area Saturday. For simplicity, we will use I-45 as our dividing line; the reality is it could be more to the east or west of that line, but it works for a generalization. West of I-45 could be partly sunny and hot. High temperatures may approach the mid- to upper-90s again. This would be most likely in places like Navasota, Katy, or Rosenberg. East of I-45 might be susceptible to more outer bands of Barry, which could yield occasional showers and thunderstorms and temperatures more erratic, ranging from the low-80s to mid-90s depending on who sees rain. This would be most likely for places like Galveston, Baytown, or Liberty.

The general rule? The more to the east you go or closer to the coast you are, the more likely you will be to see showers or storms. Galveston will see a good chance for at least some storms, so stay lightning aware if you’ll be on the beach. Also keep in mind that any rain could be heavy at times.

See full post

We just wanted to offer up a quick update this morning to let you know that Invest 92L, or Potential Tropical Cyclone #2 has now been declared officially as Tropical Storm Barry in the Gulf.

Maximum sustained winds are 40 mph as of the 10 AM CT National Hurricane Center advisory. The system is still struggling a bit to organize this morning, but now has a better defined center, enough so to be classified as a tropical entity. Most of the storms are displaced to the south and west of the center. Over the next 24 hours, the satellite presentation of Barry should improve, and slow strengthening should commence.

For us in Houston, the good news is that we remain outside the forecast cone, unlikely to see any significant impacts from what should become Tropical Storm Barry.

The National Hurricane Center is bringing Barry somewhere between Cameron & New Orleans on Saturday as a category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Watches remain hoisted from Cameron to the mouth of the Mississippi River. Tropical Storm Warnings are now up for the Louisiana coast east of Morgan City. For folks in Louisiana, this will be a tropical system, yes, but the main story will probably remain the rains that will fall, regardless if this remains a weak tropical storm or strengthens into moderate or strong tropical storm or hurricane. Those rains will all be capable of producing widespread flooding problems in the eastern half of the state and perhaps in Mississippi, should the storm shift any farther to the east.

Here in Houston, just keep tuned to the forecast, especially if you are traveling anywhere east of the region this weekend. Otherwise, expect some showers and storms to pop up this afternoon or evening. Some of the storms could be locally heavy.

Eric will have more for you later this afternoon.

So I just wanted to freshen up the site with a quick overview of what’s happening this evening and table set for tomorrow morning, when we should begin to give some more confident answers on impact risks to our area.

Now

I want to point out some of the key features to watch on a water vapor satellite image.

First, over the Desert Southwest, you can sort of see yellow color lifting north slowly. That’s the ridge of high pressure which will play a role in steering presumed future Barry. To the north, over Minnesota and Iowa, the yellow color beginning to dig south and east represents a trough in the upper atmosphere that will act to try and “pick up” Barry, drawing it to land. The ballet between these features, combined with where the storm eventually coalesces will determine whether this is indeed a Louisiana storm, as most modeling suggests, or if it could make its way far enough west toward Texas. We will learn much more about this overnight.

Where is that center?

Well, according to this tweet from one of the hurricane hunters, it’s still too broad to be easily defined:

We found a broad circulation, but fortunately not yet much else to see but a few showers and a lot of oil rigs! https://t.co/U4N51r0IJz pic.twitter.com/GILfThYeb7

— Jeremy DeHart (@JeremyDeHart53d) July 11, 2019

Based on the most recent observations from the aircraft out there this evening, however, they may finally be on to something near 27.5 N/87.5 W, or a little bit south and east of where the National Hurricane Center had been initializing things. If that is the case, that would not be drastically farther south than expected, meaning I would feel a smidge better about the “miss Houston to the east” scenario being realistic. That said, strange things can happen overnight, so let’s watch and see what’s what tomorrow morning.

Evening models

A new batch of modeling comes out in the evening that we don’t use a ton, but we can still use to look for trends. Indeed, those models did trend back to the west a bit, but not as far as it looked this morning. What does this mean? Model consensus is still very much pointing toward a Louisiana landfall, keeping most impacts to our east. Thus we have no issues with the official forecast from the National Hurricane Center.

The NHC forecast for “Potential Tropical Cyclone Two” shows landfall between Cameron, LA and Vermilion Bay, but the cone obviously extends further to the eastern side of Houston on the left and east to near New Orleans on the right. Hurricane Watches were hoisted late today, extending from Cameron, LA east to the mouth of the Mississippi River. I would expect a tropical storm or hurricane watch to be extended west overnight, perhaps all the way to High Island, TX (northeast of Bolivar).

One word of note: If you have friends or relatives in the eastern half of Louisiana or your travels will take you through there between late Friday and Sunday morning, please make sure everyone is staying on top of the latest with this system. This has the potential to be a very serious rain and flooding event for that region, including Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

So for folks in Houston: You can go to sleep tonight knowing that no data this evening has increased our odds of being significantly impacted by this storm. But given a lingering degree of uncertainty, you absolutely will want to check back in on the forecast tomorrow morning to see what, if anything, may have changed overnight.

Eric has you covered in the AM, and I just want to offer him a mention of gratitude for stepping up to spell me so we can maintain continuous coverage through the storm.