Good morning, Houston. Our region will continue to see healthy rain chances this week through around Wednesday, after which high pressure should bring them back into the 20 to 30 percent range. Highs will be generally in the low- to mid-90s. It now appears likely that our region will not be affected by Tropical Depression Grace.
Monday
Very light winds overnight, essentially 0 mph for some locations, have been problematic due to a chemical release in the La Porte area at the Lubrizol Plant on Sunday evening. Unfortunately there is very little reliable information online about this incident, but in areas from La Porte to Seabrook to Friendswood and beyond there has been a distinct “oily” odor in the air that has made people feel unwell. I wish I had more information about the chemical in question, but I don’t. I do know that the lack response by local and officials so far has been unacceptable. Winds will remain light this morning, but should be 5 to 10 mph this afternoon.
Chemical odor aside, today should be similar to Sunday, with highs in the mid-90s and healthy rain chances. For some that will mean a quick 1 to 2 inches of rainfall under a strong thunderstorm, and for others that will mean hearing the rumble of nearby thunder, with little or no rainfall. Rain chances will peak this afternoon and then wane this evening. Skies should be mostly cloudy.
Tuesday and Wednesday
This unstable pattern continues through Tuesday and Wednesday, with partly to mostly cloudy skies, highs in the low to mid-90s, and healthy rain chances peaking alongside daytime heating.
Thursday and Friday
A building ridge of high pressure should return Houston to more summertime weather toward the end of this week, and by that I mean afternoon showers should become more isolated to scattered, with skies becoming at least partly sunny. Highs will be in the mid-90s.
Saturday and Sunday
Assuming the tropics forecast holds—more on that below—this weekend should be most sunny, with a continued chance of scattered afternoon showers to go along with mostly sunny skies. In short, it should be a fairly typical August weekend for the region.
Tropics
As one would expect during August, the tropics are active. Tropical Storm Fred should reach the Florida Panhandle this evening as a strong tropical storm, bringing rains and stronger winds to places such as Destin and Panama City. Fortunately the storm is moving at a good clip to the north. And near Bermuda, Tropical Depression Eight has formed. But aside from affecting Bermuda, this system should remain offshore the mainland United States.
This leaves us with Tropical Depression Grace, which continues to move more due west than anticipated. Along this track its center will pass south of Hispaniola and Cuba (flash flooding remains a distinct possibility for these islands, unfortunately). This track means there is less of a chance that the storm will be shredded by the higher elevated terrain of these islands.
Models have also come into better agreement about Grace’s track. Given the high pressure building over the northern Gulf of Mexico, the storm is now expected to move more or less to the west, across the Yucatan Peninsula, the Bay of Campeche, and into Mexico. While we certainly cannot rule out direct impacts to Texas, their likelihood seems fairly low at this time. Grace probably will remain a tropical storm, but intensification into a hurricane cannot be ruled out this week.
As Eric writes, if the La Porte chemicsl includes H2S, the odor will be detectable until winds disperse it. H2S is detecable at ppm concentrations. Being able to smell it is a good thing. H2S is a highly toxic gas that deadens the sense of smell as the concentration increases.
This just amplifies how bad the reporting of the petrochemical industry is by the news media. If it was a massive hydrogen sulfide leak, there would likely have been casualties at the plant. How did this bad info get to the government and the news media? Someone half-awake or half-engaged on weekend duty? The authorities have a manifest of everything that’s inside a RCRA regulated facility. They should use it.
It doesn’t help that the people in the news media have no clue about what goes on in the industry. Heck, most of the TV and radio reporters in this city can’t even correctly pronounce the names of common chemicals (or even “Lubrizol”) or think that cooling tower plumes are toxic smoke coming out of the plant. Sheesh. You think they could find someone who at least took chemistry in college – – or even high school.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Are you in agreement with the westward movement into Mexico and not more northward toward Texas?
H2S is also very easy to recognize by smell. Most people detect it as a rotten egg smell. All the industries monitor for this constantly, the people at the terminal I work at wear h2s monitors on them at all times.
Everything else you said about it is true. Just adding some info for those who might not know.
It was a methyl mercaptan leak from a rail car.
IAH has only recorded 0.05 of rainfall since July 16. Talk about more misses than hits…
I recorded 2.93 inches of rain on my gauge Sunday afternoon during our thunderstorms.
i have to say, how did no-to-light winds bring that gawdawful smell this far west? I am in west League City and it was awful last night and is finally clearing outside this morning. The smell inside my house being another story …
To League City…with H2S detectable at concentrations of 1 ppm, it doesn’t take much air movement to spread it. I estimate you are 13.5 air miles from La Porte.
I AM IN SEABROOK OFF REDBLUFF…IT WAS HORRIBLE HERE. STILL HAVE HEADACHE AND THROAT SWOLLEN N BURNS. IT’S MANAGEABLE TODAY BUT UNCOMFORTABLE, I CAN’T IMAGE MORE PEOPLE ARENT HAVING ISSUES TOO.
Yeah, the smell was so bad in League City that I had trouble sleeping until 2-3am. Felt like someone had painted the inside of my nose with oily awfulness.
I woke up this morning to my Citizen app telling me that natural gas odors in downtown Houston were being attributed to the release. I’m sorry, but that map shows the winds out of the north. There’s no way those odors are coming from the Ship Channel.
Not sure “I do know that the lack response by local and officials so far has been unacceptable.” is really fact. They put in a shelter in place order until they knew what the threat was. They determined it wasn’t H2S, narrowed down to a rail yard spill. They still don’t have exact chemical makeup, but given they are investigating a live scene in a HAZMAT area, what else are they supposed to do? Are we expecting them to crank up wind themselves?
If so, sign me up. Any on every hot day of the year! If they’re using the fans to keep Grace south, all the better!
Let’s fire up all those big fans we have on the plains! Get that air moving!
Immediately regret saying they determined the threat. They determined it wasn’t H2S, not that it isn’t a threat. I would imagine they know its not a likely explosion threat, but again, speculation not fact. Apologies.
What is with the chemical leaks lately? Just a month ago we had a chemical leak that lingered for many days, causing respiratory irritation, headaches, nausea. That one headed north from Lyondel in the ship channel and affected communities from Galena Park and Jacinto City to reports all the way north to Beltway 8. It is always worded as “nuisance odor”, but when it’s causing sore throats and makes people throw up, that’s more than just a bad smell… Both industry and government need to do more to prevent and address these spills.
As someone who has worked in the petrochemical industry for 40 years, I’ve been wondering about residual damage from the freeze, much like an electrical failure our plant suffered in summer 2009 due to unrecognized damage from Ike. Many of the Ship Channel plants are old, some dating from WWII. Also, COVID and COVID protocols are straining the available work force at some facilities.
WOW! Great point! My husband works in Refineries with communications and I used too as well as in the Oilfield. I have smelled some BAD mojo, but THIS was by far the WORST EVER! I am still not feeling well…just wondering if anyone else having same things. Swollen throat, sore burning throat and headache. This morning it made me sick to stomach went I turned AC back on in house and I felt really dizzy. Dizzy on n off today but all have been manageable but uncomfortable. Thank you for pointing out your concern. We ALL need to keep talking and finding out WHAT THE HECK THE TRUTH IS ABOUT LAST NIGHT AND OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS! Enough is enough! I will be posting back on here my results once I get them. Getting my blood drawn and analyzed tomorrow to find out what the heck is in my system. Hopefully my insurance won’t deny covering and want ME to pay for it! We will see! Be Blessed and thank you! Pls EVERYONE Keep talking and share!!!
Carla Haramboure, you forget, this is Texas, where industry and government work together to assure that will never happen, because “regulation bad”, and, “dagnabbit, nowehere in The Constitution or bible does it say anything about holding the petrochemical indusrty accountable!”
This is ridiculous! It seems to me that the amount of spills and accidents that have been happening around us down here on the southeast side have been increasing over the past several years. I’m annoyed and now thinking I will be trying to get over to Fort Bend.
In areas of Tanglewood, Briargrove, Memorial, etc. we had 2.5-3 inches of rain, high winds, power outages, etc Sunday night. Still some outages going into this morning. Neighbors said they have never seen it rain so hard in a short amount of time. Not even a mention of it? Weird forecast today by spacecityweather.
In the Heights area it rained hard, but not as hard as you describe. It did knock out my Internet service for a moment. Also, what I found odd is that unlike typical July and August rain, the storm left a light drizzle that persisted for more than an hour. The summer rains that pop up in the afternoon or evening are generally short lived. After a quick, short downpour, the sun comes back, and the humidity picks up.
I noticed the same thing in Sugar Land… the heavy rain lingered a lot longer than what I’ve come to expect from storms generated by a frontal boundary passing through, or a pop-up shower.
Plus, there was a 5 minute stretch of heavy rain yesterday the likes of which I’ve never seen before, even during Harvey. It was more akin to a white-out blizzard than a rainstorm.
There is literally an app for this. The CAER Online app has more details about what happened. Lubrizol self-reported the incident along with follow up information. My AC pumped in the smell and it is stuck in the house. I was never under a shelter in place order, so I did not turn off my AC. Wish I had now.
I went on CAER last night right away and this is everything on there up until this minute…NOTHING ELSE POSTED SINCE.
Posted On – 8/16/2021 6:29:00 AM
This is a message from Lubrizol DP located at 41 Tidal Rd Deer Park,TX 77536. We are downgrading the odor incident on Tidal road to Level 2. There may still be potential for nuisance odors, however there remains no impact or risk to the surrounding community. We continue to mitigate this issue while working with local authorities.
Posted On – 8/15/2021 10:12:00 PM
This is a message from Lubrizol DP located at 41 Tidal Rd Deer Park,TX 77536. At 20:15 on 8/15/2021, an odor incident tied to a rail car vapor release occurred at our Tidal Rd. facility. Other than nuisance odors, there is no impact or risk to the surrounding community. We continue to monitor air quality and are actively working to resolve this matter, including working with local authorities to keep them advised. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Posted On – 8/15/2021 10:12:00 PM
This is a message from Lubrizol DP located at 41 Tidal Rd Deer Park,TX 77536. At 20:15 on 8/15/2021, an odor incident tied to a rail car vapor release occurred at our Tidal Rd. facility. Other than nuisance odors, there is no impact or risk to the surrounding community. We continue to monitor air quality and are actively working to resolve this matter, including working with local authorities to keep them advised. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Posted On – 8/15/2021 8:34:00 PM
This is a message from Lubrizol DP located at 41 Tidal Rd Deer Park,TX 77536. At 20:15 on 8/15/2021, a(n) Odor incident occurred at our facility. At this time, Odor may be noticeable to the community. We are coordinating with local officials, and working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Stay tuned to local officials for more information. Update will be provided on this site, when needed
THIS WAS NOT AN ODOR INCIDENT! IT WAS HORRIBLE AND I STILL DON’T FEEL WELL. AND NO INFORMATION BEEN PUT OUT OR AVAILABLE! AND LAST COMMENT SAID DOWN GRADED TO LEVEL 2???? SORRY FRUSTRATED AND COULDN’T SLEEP FROM BREATHING THAT CRAP ACCIDENTALLY! Logging off …TY for listening. Keep speaking up and sharing with those here needing INFO…
I just recently discovered this site. I enjoy the succinct writing style exhibited by Mr. Eric. He seems to be as correct, if not more than, our local broadcast personalities. Thanks Mr. Eric!
it’s the best weather forecasting here by far. Eric and Matt know this stuff better than anyone anywhere close.
Not only do they know their stuff, they leave out the hype. I don’t watch local channel TV, but I guarantee you there is weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth b/c two pieces of the spaghetti chart have landed across the Houston area before Grace even entered the GOM.
The release that caused the odor was in Deer Park, not LaPorte. Yes, they are close to LaPorte, but that facility reports to Deer Park authorities.
I am in SEABROOK! It was HORRIBLE! SMELLED LIKE ROTTEN MOTOR OIL! AND THE AIR WAS MORE LIKE A LIQUID THAN A GAS! IT FELT LIKE I WAS SROWNING WHEN INHALED ON ACCIDENT. Sorry not yelling with CAPS. LOL! Just emphasizing.
Tropical update very helpful. One less thing to worry about but still watch.