When the rains stop, here are some first steps to take for your property

Tuesday, 8:30am CT—Understandably, it is hard to think about what must be done after a natural disaster. We know the stress of the moment is nearly too much to bear—especially for those of you who are dealing with immediate flooding issues. Water in your home. A flooded business. A lost vehicle. All of our thoughts and prayers are with you.

We are not experts in disaster recovery, we’re just forecasters. But we can provide some basic information about what to do when the rains are finally over, and we all will have to face the reality of damaged or lost property. While it may be difficult to fathom a return to normalcy right now, we hope this information may prove useful in the coming days.

Home flooding

Though flood waters may begin receding from your neighborhood, do not go back into your home until authorities say it is safe (i.e. despite the temptation, do not drive around barriers). This may not happen until Thursday or Friday, as Harvey finally leaves the area. Roadways can appear safe, but flood waters could erode the ground from under the asphalt, creating sinkholes. Wait until roads are free of water and safe to drive before attempting to return. Avoid standing water as well—water could be electrically charged from power lines, or hide dangerous wildlife (think alligators, snakes, or floating beds of fire ants).

A raft of fire ants in Pearland, Texas. (Brant Kelly/Flickr)

Once you get into your home, the first thing you should do is turn off the electricity at the main breaker, even if power is out in your community. Turn off the gas valves that feed into each individual appliance (stove, water heater, etc.). Then, carefully check your home to make sure there is no structural damage. Flood waters can put tremendous strain on the structure of a home. Take plenty of pictures of anything that is damaged, and contact your insurer immediately. As you begin any cleanup efforts, keep receipts. It may take insurance adjusters days or even weeks to assess your damage, so keep meticulous records. Finally, remember that flood insurance is a separate policy from homeowner’s insurance.

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Tuesday morning Harvey forecast update

Tuesday, 6:20am CT— Good morning to all. Day four of Harvey in Houston is well underway. The end of the rain part of the storm is closer yet. For those curious about specifically how much rain has fallen, the National Weather Service did compile a brief list. Mutliple locations are over 40″ of rain total, especially southeast of Houston. Other locations have ranged from a lot to an awful lot.

Now

After a night of more rain, things have calmed down a bit in many areas this morning. Most rainfall rates are under 0.50″ this morning, except perhaps in the northeast corner of Harris County, and parts of Liberty, Chambers, and coastal Galveston Counties.

Radar as of 6 AM shows continued light rain in much of the area, with some more moderate rains east of I-45 and near the coast. (GR Level 3)

Any breaks are welcome of course, but we still have a little bit of a ways to go in this storm.

Today

Models seem to be struggling a bit handling the current situation, either overdoing it or underdoing it, so there’s a degree of uncertainty in the forecast today. If we look at a satellite loop this morning, the brightest clouds on this loop (essentially indicating the most moisture for thunderstorms) are clearly east of the area.

Harvey’s most intense weather should stay to our east, but I don’t believe we’re done with occasional moderate to heavy rains yet. (College of DuPage preliminary, non-operational GOES-16 data)

If you look offshore, there remains a little cluster of heavier storms on the north side of the center of Harvey (still a 45 mph tropical storm). Harvey’s eastward drift should become a northeasterly one later today. As this happens, it will probably fling back another wave or two of rainfall into the region, similar to yesterday or somewhat similar to last night. The heaviest rains will be east of I-45, while lighter rains will continue west of I-45. We should add up to a couple more inches at most west and perhaps 2-4″ (perhaps a few higher amounts in spots) or so east through the day today.

Tonight and Wednesday

As we go into the final phase of Harvey, and it begins to pull away tonight and Wednesday, we should see periods of rain once again, lightest west, heaviest east. Those should add up to another 0.50-1.50″ west of US-59 tonight through Wednesday evening and another 1.50-4″ east of US-59 and north of I-10. Some places will see less, others more, but this is about the average of what we should see.

Harvey’s turn north begins today and begins to accelerate tomorrow. (National Hurricane Center)

The forecast for Wednesday night would have steady rain ending east of Houston, and Thursday should see just a few scattered showers. Friday and Saturday continue to look dry.

We’ll have more the forecast and flooding later this morning. Stay safe all.

Posted at 6:20 AM Tuesday by Matt

Late Monday evening Harvey forecast update

Monday, 9:55pm CT— Our torment continues, as rain, albeit far less intense than what we’ve experienced at times since the weekend, continues in another soggy night around Houston.

Now

There’s no good news here, but if we want to try and spin things positively tonight, we can say something at least. Areas west of Houston, where rains flow into the already full Addicks and Barker Reservoirs are seeing relatively lighter rains compared to the rest of the region. The rate of rainfall is averaging about 0.50″ to 1.50″. Of course, areas east do not need the rainfall either. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction unfortunately. Again, areas already in flood continue in flood, and the combination of rain and wind prevents much rapid drainage to improve conditions elsewhere.

Harvey continues dumping steady rain over the Houston area. (GR Level 3)

 

Rest of Tonight

Unfortunately we don’t see this rain ending tonight. In fact, the situation may be rather steady state much of the night. Rain will fall at varying levels of intensity. The heaviest will be south of I-10 and east of I-45. Rates will remain in this 0.50″ to 1.50″ per hour rain most of the time, but every so often it could ramp up to 2″ per hour or ease back to 0.25″ per hour. Winds will continue to gust at times to 25 to 35 mph, perhaps down a little from earlier today, but still enough to produce occasional, scattered power outages. CenterPoint is reporting about 96.02% of customers with power tonight, which isn’t substantially changed from earlier today.

Tuesday

We’re almost to the end of this terrible movie, but we have one more day to get through. Analyzing data this evening, it appears steady moderate rains will continue much of Tuesday. Similar to tonight, it could be heavy at times, lighter at others. The trend will be toward slightly more sporadic rains and hopefully slightly lighter ones too. I suspect that trend will continue into tomorrow night.

Wednesday and Thursday

Harvey finally exits to our north on Wednesday. Rain should taper to showers from south to north and end through the day. Yes, the rain will end. Finally. By Thursday, there may still be enough instability around for scattered showers or storms, but they’ll be very hit or miss (many of us dry, others see a shower or two). And I think we’ll see some sunshine here.

We’ll keep you posted through to the end of Harvey and beyond. Be safe all.

Posted at 9:55 PM Monday by Matt

Harvey Monday evening forecast: It’s not a great one

Monday, 6:15pm CT—It’s been a wet day across an already waterlogged Houston, and unfortunately we can probably expect similar conditions to continue through the night. During the day we have seen a lot of dry enter into Harvey’s circulation along its eastern side, but unfortunately this has yet to substantially affect the convection on Harvey’s northwest side—which just happens to be continuously dumping rainfall on Houston.

Harvey’s satellite appearance at 6pm CT. (NOAA)

This pattern has allowed Harvey to drop 3 to 8 inches of rain across most of the Houston metro area during daylight hours today, with the heaviest rains in northern Brazoria County and Southern Harris County.

Because Harvey is only moving to the east-southeast very slowly, about at the pace of a slow walk, we can probably expect this pattern to continue for tonight, and into Tuesday morning. For the most part these aren’t excessively heavy rains, but even rainfall rates of 1 inch an hour will cause bayous and floodwaters to rise if they persist long enough. Therefore, while we don’t expect floodwaters to rise rapidly tonight, steady, moderate rains could cause slow rises in bayous. This is about exactly what the Houston region doesn’t need right now.

As far as accumulations, the National Weather Service predicts that the following areas of Houston could get as much rainfall as the amounts shown in this graphic during the next 24 hours, through 7pm Tuesday. I’m hoping these totals are little high, but we can’t rule them out.

Rain accumulation forecast for 7pm Monday to 7pm Tuesday. (National Weather Service)

Looking for some good news? We have a little bit of that. The favorable area for tornado formation is moving to the east, so we should have fewer tornado warnings tonight, and then fewer to none on Tuesday. Also, we feel fairly confident that the potential for prolonged, heavy rainfall will end sometime on Wednesday, during the afternoon or evening hours.

Matt will have another update later tonight.

Posted by Eric at 6:15pm CT on Monday