We are now about 36 hours from the landfall of Hurricane Harvey, which is taking advantage of 87-degree waters in the Gulf of Mexico to intensify today, and may continue to do so right up until landfall late Friday night or Saturday morning. The rapid intensification we’ve seen today (as of 1pm Harvey had sustained winds of 85 mph) is the reason why meteorologists are so watchful of tropical lows in the Gulf during August and September—in the absence of wind shear, the bath water out there is highly favorable for storms to strengthen.
Today’s strengthening, and increasingly bullish model forecasts for intensity, have caused the National Hurricane Center to increase its predicted wind speed for Harvey’s landfall to 125 mph, just shy of Category 4 hurricane intensity. Although intensity forecasts are imprecise, it seems safe to conclude that a powerful hurricane will be coming to the Texas coast soon.
With a stronger storm, we need to be more concerned about the landfall location. Confidence continues to increase in a landfall between Corpus Christi and Port O’Connor. This obviously will have big implications in terms of wind and storm surge for Corpus Christi (where there is a voluntary evacuation), and points north to Freeport. We will have more about the impacts to Texas in an update later this afternoon or early evening.