Some late night thoughts about Laura, and hurricanes in general

I have come to the conclusion that hurricanes are fascinating and horrible. But mostly, horrible.

Three years ago, at this very hour, those first, tremendous rain bands from Hurricane Harvey were pushing through Houston. It was a Saturday night. The storm had come ashore the day before, and Houston had seen a few bouts of heavy rainfall on Friday night. Most of the day Saturday was reasonably sedate. And then, BOOM. Ten inches of rain on the west side and then the first band moves over to the east side of Houston. And then it. Just. Stopped. Twelve inches of rain in two hours at one gauge near my home. Like for many of you, that was the longest and worst night of my life. Rising waters. Flooded homes. No idea if it would ever end.

Radar image of Tropical Storm Harvey at 9pm CT August 26, 2017. (Space City Weather/Intellicast)

And now tonight we are watching another devastating hurricane, Laura. This one is a completely different animal from Harvey. Though inland flooding from rainfall is not a concern this is a monstrously intense storm, stronger than anything ever recorded in that part of the Gulf of Mexico, pushing a wall of water toward Louisiana and lashing the state with 150-mph winds. I have never experienced that. I never want to. You run from that hell. And you run fast.

I feel immense relief tonight that Laura is not barreling down on the west end of Galveston Island, bringing 130- or even 140-mph wind gusts across broad swaths of the Houston community and leaving a path of devastation. At the same time, I have something akin to survivor’s guilt knowing that I will sleep comfortably in my bed late tonight. I’ll hear some wind. Maybe some rain. But these will only be distant echoes of the horrors unfolding a couple of hundred miles away, on the beastly right side of Laura. So many will lose so much tonight. Some will pay the ultimate price. Others will see their lives and livelihoods destroyed. So hurricanes are horrible.

Houston came pretty close to feeling Laura’s wrath. Many people closely watched the radar today, anxious to see whether Laura would in fact turn fully to the northwest, and then the north, as forecast. This gives you some insight the difficulty in forecasting a storm like Laura. As recently as Monday morning—less than three days ago—Laura was still a tropical storm more than 1,500 miles from Houston. The trick was figuring out when that turn to the northwest would occur, and getting it right to within dozens of miles. Because if Laura had waited a few more hours to turn, we all have an idea of what might have happened here.

Hurricane Laura is about 50 miles south of Cameron, Louisiana, at 10:10 pm CT. (RadarScope)

Hopefully this will inspire a younger generation to become interested in meteorology. The reason I got into weather science is because, quite selfishly, I wanted to know what was going to happen. I got caught unawares by Tropical Storm Allison way back in 2001, surrounded by rising waters beneath sheets of torrential rainfall. Never again, I vowed. But forecasting is hard work. Especially as Matt and I have, improbably, found ourselves with a voice in the community. A lot of people, and my goodness there are a lot of you kind souls, in this area now look to us for guidance. That’s a lot of pressure not to screw up. We do sometimes, but we try our damnedest not to, all day and pretty late into the night. But we want to make sure you’re never caught unawares, either. Anyway, it’s now been 11 days since we first started talking about the systems that would become Marco and Laura. It is good to be finally seeing them head toward the exits. We’re exhausted—mentally and emotionally.

We’ll be back with one more post tonight to wrap up conditions for the greater Houston area (they’re not going to be serious at all), and assess some of the preliminary effects of Laura on Louisiana and southeast Texas. That probably will be posted around 2 am CT.

Laura on the precipice of category 5 intensity as it approaches the Louisiana coast

POSTED AT 8:20 PM CT WEDNESDAY: Hurricane Laura has made its turn to the north in earnest late this afternoon and evening, and is likely heading for landfall on the Louisiana coast, possibly near Calcasieu Pass, south of Lake Charles.

Hurricane Laura is approaching the Louisiana coast this evening, about 95 miles south of Lake Charles and southeast of Port Arthur. (Weathernerds.org)

Wherever it makes landfall doesn’t mean much now short of who sees the absolute worst of the strongest hurricane ever recorded in this part of the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s going to be a hellish night for folks in extreme southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana. Nothing seems to be slowing Laura down, which is par for the course for a storm that somehow dodged nearly every conceivable hurdle imaginable in the Caribbean and brought us to this point. While Laura is still expected to come ashore “past peak,” it will still likely be the worst hurricane on record for this particular portion of the Louisiana coast. Conditions will now begin to rapidly deteriorate in far southeast Texas and Louisiana, progressing up to landfall around midnight. There’s really not much else to say at this point except godspeed to folks in the path.

Houston area

See our earlier afternoon post for a breakdown of what we expect in the Houston area and elsewhere. Most of these impacts are unchanged and may even be forecast too high.

Wind gusts as of 8 PM are not that bad in Houston. We may only see slightly stronger gusts overnight. (NOAA)

The highest wind gust as of 8 PM in the Houston area is about 25 mph at Hobby Airport. Galveston is gusting to around 30-35 mph. We do expect these gusts will increase a bit overnight, but with the storm now on a mostly north-northwest heading, we’ll see how far west the 30 to 40 mph gusts can make it.

There is surge still happening though, and the Bluewater Highway in Brazoria County is now closed from Surfside to San Luis Pass because of water and debris.

Surge levels look to be about 3 to 4 feet so far at San Luis Pass up through Galveston.

There are not many showers around Houston at the moment, and we will likely have a quiet evening. Rain could commence at times overnight, and it will likely fall east of I-45 and along the coast as Laura lifts inland. Our best chance of heavier rain in Houston may come in Laura’s “tail” wake on Friday. We’ll update you more on that tomorrow.

Eric will have our next post no later than 11 PM CT tonight.

As Laura tracks east, Houston’s biggest issue tonight may be power outages

Hurricane Laura has rapidly intensified today, with 145-mph winds. Matt’s post from this afternoon has the storm’s effects pretty well covered for both Houston, Beaumont, and points east. This is an extremely dangerous storm and will prove especially punishing for western Louisiana.

Below you’ll find the National Hurricane Center’s 4 pm CT track update. The track line remains the same, but the cone has moved further away from Houston as it has shrunk. There is high confidence in this forecast track. Laura is turning. It will continue to turn.

4pm CT Wednesday track for Hurricane Laura. (National Hurricane Center)

Power outages

We continue to think the main issue tonight in the Houston area will be power outages due to localized, strong wind gusts that may reach 50 or even 60 mph. Sustained winds will be lower. Our best comparison for this event is Hurricane Rita. According to its financial documents, CenterPoint Energy had 1.9 million customers in 2005, at the time of Rita’s landfall. After Rita, the company reported that 715,000 customers lost power in its greater Houston service area, about 38 percent of customers. This map shows that most of those losses were on Galveston Island and clustered in the eastern half of its service area, as you would suspect.

CenterPoint service area outages immediately after Hurricane Rita. (CNP)

About half of those customers had service restored by 10pm that night, and more than 80 percent had service back by Monday evening, about 2.5 days after the storm’s passage. Nearly all customers had service back within five days.

CenterPoint restoration efforts after Rita. (CNP)

CenterPoint serves about 2.5 million customers in the region now. We don’t think outages will be as severe tonight for a couple of reasons. Although Laura is likely to be stronger than Rita at landfall, it should also be further east than that storm, and also has a smaller field of tropical storm force winds, about 175 miles compared to 205 miles for Rita. So we think there will be fewer gusts in the region, and the wind effects should be shorter lived as Laura continues to scoot along.

Additionally, after Hurricane Ike, CenterPoint began a program to “harden the system” within 35 miles of the Gulf Coast, and this involves changing wooden structures to concrete and steel. However, most of the electricity distribution system is still about 95 percent wood. In any case, it can’t hurt to charge your phone this evening, especially if you live east of Interstate 45, or close to the coast.

Our next post will come no later than 8:30 pm CT.

Laura, now a category 4 hurricane, will be a catastrophic storm for western Louisiana

POSTED AT 2 PM CT WEDNESDAY: Good afternoon. Hurricane Laura has continued strengthening in the Gulf of Mexico all day so far, showing no signs of slowing. It is now up to category 4 intensity, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph.

Could Laura achieve category 5 status before landfall? It’s possible, as there are no signs of strengthening slowing down as of this writing (pressures keep falling). Laura is expected to come ashore below its peak intensity. It may feel the effects of some wind shear, shown in red on this map below.

Wind shear is expected to increase as Laura approaches the Gulf Coast, which may aid in slowing down the intensity a bit at landfall. (University of Wisconsin CIMSS)

That shear is moving with Laura to the north, so it may not help as much as you’d otherwise hope. More likely, Laura could experience what is known as an “eyewall replacement cycle” before landfall; basically a way for the storm to reorganize itself. When that happens, a drop in intensity usually occurs, sometimes substantial. We hope this happens right before landfall, which would allow Laura to come in on the decline, rather than at maximum intensity. Unfortunately, this aspect of the forecast is difficult to predict and we are really only relying on hope at this point. It’s possible Laura could just continue strengthening right up to landfall, similar to what Hurricane Michael did 2 years ago near Panama City, FL, though as a colleague of mine pointed out in a conversation earlier, the coastal topography of the Gulf here is much more shallow than off Florida. Shallow water can be more easily churned up and help to reduce the fuel available for hurricanes to feed off of. Whatever it is at landfall doesn’t much matter at this point, as it will still likely be bad.

Laura is moving northwest at 16 mph, which is blazing fast for this part of the Gulf. For folks in Houston, it’s important to know that Laura is doing what is expected, and “the turn” is underway. It’s not “if” or “when.” It “is” happening, and thankfully in the world of 21st century meteorology we can say that with authority. We will not be hit too hard here by this storm. Laura is expected to make landfall on the Cameron Parish side of the Texas/Louisiana border as a category 4 hurricane tonight perhaps around or just before midnight.

Laura will make landfall near or east of the Texas/Louisiana border tonight, likely as a category 4 hurricane. (NOAA)

 

Let’s walk you through the expected wind and surge impacts at this time.

Houston area: West of I-45 (The Woodlands, Katy, Cypress, Sugar Land, etc.)

Periods of showers and thunderstorms possible to likely tonight. Impacts peak between 9 PM and 3 AM with winds of 15 to 25 mph and gusts as high as 30 mph or so.

Houston area: East of I-45, north of I-10 (Kingwood, Humble, Crosby, etc.)
Impacts peak between 9 PM and 4 AM with winds of 15 to 25 mph. Gusts will peak around 35 mph or so.

Areas around or just inland from Galveston & Trinity Bays (Bay Area communities, Texas City, League City, Baytown, etc.)
Impacts peak between 8 PM and 4 AM with sustained winds of 25 to 35 mph and gusts of 40 to 50 mph, highest south, lowest north. Surge of 1 to 3 feet, though northerly/northwesterly winds may push water to the south toward Galveston

Galveston & Bolivar
Impacts peak between 8 PM and 4 AM with sustained winds of 30 to 40 mph and gusts of 50 to 60 mph, or a bit higher possible. Storm surge on Galveston Island is expected to be on the order of 1 to 4 feet, with the bay side experiencing surge as well. Storm surge on the Bolivar Peninsula may be as high as 4 to 5 feet.

Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange area
Impacts peak between Midnight and 5 AM with sustained winds of 75 to 90 mph and gusts of 95 to 110 mph. Surge of 10 to 15 feet into Sabine Lake.

Lake Charles area
Impacts peak between midnight and 6 AM with sustained winds of 75 to 100 mph and gusts of 95 to 120 mph. Storm surge of 15 to 20 feet into Calcasieu Lake.

Rainfall
Just to further put you at ease, the total rainfall through tomorrow in the Houston area is expected to be 1 to 2 inches total. Many places will likely see less than this. A few to the south and east may see a bit more.

Laura’s passage will not be a flooding event in Houston. (Weather Bell)

But in this case, flooding, other than some nuisance street flooding is not expected. On Friday, we may see a slightly better chance of some heavier rain as modeling has been in agreement on a better signal for storm chances from a trailing band feeding into Laura’s remnants over the Mississippi Valley then. Something we’ll check into more closely tomorrow.

So again, just to summarize, Laura is moving northwest and will turn more north-northwest this evening, likely making landfall on the Louisiana coast, well east of Houston, as a major hurricane. Eric will have our next post no later than 5:30 PM CT.