2 pm CT Friday Update: Hurricane Delta is now moving north-northeast toward Louisiana, and will make landfall later this afternoon or early evening, likely around sunset. Delta has weakened slightly, to 110 mph, but because it has grown into a large storm it will push a powerful storm surge into Vermillion Bay and nearby areas. Its winds will batter areas already devastated by Hurricane Laura just six weeks ago.
The winds we’re feeling in Houston today are due to that expanding wind field. Galveston Island recently recorded a gust of 58 mph, to go along with sustained winds of 45 mph—above Tropical Storm levels. Further inland, many locations in Houston have recorded gusts of 30 mph or above today. These winds are probably about at their maximum levels, and will begin to wind down later this afternoon or early evening as Delta moves further to the northeast.
As expected, rains have been falling primarily over the eastern half of the metro area, with as much as 1 inch near Galveston Bay, while no rain has come down over West Houston. Expect rain chances to ebb later this afternoon and evening as well.
It’s a similar story with tides and waves along the coast, but the storm’s approach at low tide (this afternoon) is helping to mitigate some of the surge we’re seeing along the upper Texas coast. We still expect to see a fair amount of beach erosion.
Delta will move quickly away tonight. The bottom line is that beginning tomorrow, summer returns to Houston, with sunny skies and, by Sunday, highs in the 90s. With fair weather over head, we should probably be thinking about what we can do to help our hard-hit neighbors to the east in Louisiana. They have endured a terrible one-two punch from the tropics this year.
We’ll see you on Monday morning.
What is the best way to offer help if we can’t personally go there?
Google Lake Charles relief efforts. Or any other city you are interested in. Most have banks set up to take monetary donations.
Sophia – water, electrolyte beverages, easy foods, tarps, gloves, trash bags, gas/fuel, and gas cans for generators, chainsaws, four-wheelers, etc. Think about things you might need if you lost power or a tree fell on your home and you couldn’t get to any stores. Speaking from experience after Hurricane Harvey, money sent to the Red Cross or similar may not ever make it to most in need. I was part of a relief effort after Hurricane Laura and the organization I contributed to was able to deliver five (packed!) truckloads of food and other items in LA that helped 20-25 families. They were SO grateful. Hopefully someone that is able to go out there again can chime in below. If my acquaintance is going again, I’ll update/reply. I do know a lot of churches assisted previously – try searching on Facebook for “Hurricane Delta relief”.
Eric, it makes me so happy to see you encouraging Houstonians to help our neighbors. It seems obvious, but it’s a great reminder to keep them in our thoughts and try to help, if possible. I think most of us breath a sigh of relief when when we are spared from something like this, then just go on with life, thinking about our weekend plans or worrying about what water feature we can take our kids to enjoy maybe one more time. Meanwhile, others to the east are reliving the hell they just went through, making PTSD worse – dealing with that same heat and having no choice but to be outside, hungry and sweaty, cleaning up their keepsakes and memories.
A lot of folks don’t realize this but just a handful of years ago a cat 3 storm sitting on our doorstep would have led to massive evacuations. The fact that we are pretty much business as usual shows just how advanced, and trustworthy, forecasting has become.
Kudos to all involved!
Speak for yourself! I high tailed it outa hear on Wednesday when I saw that blob coming this way. I live in Katy.
And you headed to Galveston I bet….
Always a tough decision to make. Stay or go. I’m in the Cypress area and about the only thing that would make me evacuate is a strong cat 4 or 5 coming up through the Matagorda area.
Ha Ha! Nice one!
Eric, I have a couple of storm related questions.
It seems that storms tend make landfall in the evening or night hours. Is that coincidence, just my perception or is there a scientific reason behind that?
Has there been any other year where an area or city gets hit twice in one year, especially so soon after the first storm?
My heart goes out to Louisiana.
Eric and Matt, do you have any suggestions for the best charities to donate money to after a storm comes through?
I would pitch the United Way of SW Louisiana: https://unitedwayswla.org/Donate
Or the Community Foundation of SW Louisiana: https://www.foundationswla.org/hurricane-relief
Both have dedicated hurricane relief funds you can have donations earmarked for. And both are obviously based in SW Louisiana, so they’ll stay local.
Any comments about what is now Disturbance #1?
Unlikely to be a concern for us. Models do hint at some activity to our east in about 10 days, but by then, you’d be into never-before-seen historically late for the western Gulf, so it would have to be some kind of literally unprecedented situation to get it this far west. Long story short: Hurricane season should now be done for us in Texas.