The mountainous terrain of Mexico has shredded the once incredibly powerful Hurricane Patricia, and the system is now a tropical storm as it races northeast toward its soggy destiny with Texas. Patricia will combine with a slow moving cool front and ample Gulf moisture to create a potentially dangerous situation tonight in the greater Houston area.
RAIN ACCUMULATION
Forecast models continue to predict an extreme rainfall event for the Lone Star State, and it appears increasingly likely the heaviest precipitation today and Sunday will come along the upper Texas coast. To start with, here’s the latest precipitation forecast from NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center, essentially the best estimates from their meteorologists assessing all of the models for rain between this morning and the end of the event on Sunday night:
The first thing you’ll probably notice is a staggering 11-inch bullseye over Galveston County and Galveston Bay. This indicates the kind of very, very heavy rain this system and its associated tropical air mass are capable of.