8:10 am CT Tuesday: Effective immediately, we are elevating our Flood Scale alert to Stage 3 for parts of the Houston metro area along, and south of Interstate 10. This is where the heaviest rain should again fall today and perhaps tonight as Tropical Storm Beta continues to pump moisture into the region. For areas further inland, we are maintaining a Stage 1 flood alert.
Why did we elevate the risk? For one, Beta produced more rains on Monday and Monday night than we generally anticipated, up to 10 to 12 inches in some locations. While this is not a catastrophic storm yet, it has produced widespread street flooding in central and southern parts of the Houston area. Many roads, including much of Highway 288, are impassable at this time. Residents are strongly encouraged to stay home today. Finally, many bayous in hard hit areas are at or near bankfull, meaning that we could see some home flooding today if heavy rains continue. The best web site to track the water level of your nearest bayou or creek is Harris County’s Flood Warning System.
One of Beta’s strongest bands has again established itself along roughly the Interstate 45 corridor this morning, and this is dragging showers capable of producing 1 to 1.5 inches of rainfall an hour into the city, affecting some already hard-hit areas. This band appears to be lifting slowly north, and behind it there is an area largely free of rain. It’s possible this area of more stable air may move into Houston, providing a bit of a reprieve later this morning. But I’m making no promises on that.
Right now, I would generally expect 2 to 4 inches of additional rainfall across the Houston metro area today, but we cannot rule out higher bullseyes.
Our next update will come no later than 11 am CT.
Thanks, Eric! Appreciate the frequent updates. Hope you can get some rest today!
My street near Fairview in Montrose is passable, but my courtyard is flooded and we got rain and water up to almost a foot from my door. Raining harder now too.
Is the storm drain clogged because Montrose didn’t get much rain, the streets barely have any water in them
It’s got to be a drain, the rain here by W. Gray just a bit further up has been patchy from light to fairly hard drizzle but we’ve stayed dry besides ponding in divots here and there (which happens anytime it rains).
those new sewers on West Grey make a huge difference, but my building is old and the foundation in the courtyard seems slanted. Gotta fix that by next year. I just passed over Buffalo Bayou and holy crap it’s high.
Can you confirm if this stage 3 would include Galveston County? Our issue in this area is that everyone on the news talks about Houston but rarely Galveston County, thank you.
Yes, it definitely would.
Yes. It includes Galveston County. Galveston County is south of Interstate 10 and the Interstate 45 corridor runs in the middle of Galveston County.
What about Galveston Island?
Three days ago I said your drastically underestimated the rainfall totals and that we could get over 10 inches of rain. My comment was deleted.
Now it is even worse than I anticipated. You guys ready to admit you got it wrong or are you going to delete this one too?
Lol. @Lawfox, get out of here…
The post clearly acknowledges that we underestimated the amount of rainfall received on Monday and Monday night along and south of I-10. What a reasonable person does is reassess the evidence, and make the best possible decision moving forward. If our honest mistake impels you to gloat, by all means, have at it.
I appreciate your recognition and would not be posting now if my original comment had not been deleted. No one is gloating. People are going to lose their homes because of the flooding and I hope not worse. There’s nothing to gloat about. Given the number of people who rely on your advice it is reasonable to expect some criticism.
But if the way you deal with negative criticism is to delete opposing viewpoints and mock critics, by all means, have at it.
You should demand a refund of your membership fee.
Be as flippant as you want to, the public puts their trust in them, they use this platform for advertisements, it is reasonable to ask for some accountability.
LawFox DOES have a point. If Eric Berger had been more accurate with his prediction, I would have picked up my house and moved it to a location north of Interstate 10. But since Mr. Berger simply used the best meteorological tools available, decades of experience and a detailed understanding of physics, fluid mechanics and historical weather patterns instead of trusting the wisdom of an anonymous poster, we are left with this mess.
I linked to the official NOAA estimates… this wasn’t my random unsupported opinion.
Lawfox,
Are you actually going to help SCW responsible for nature not cooperating with a good faith estimate?
What a maroon you are.
It was a link to higher projections contained in a NOAA forecast conveying an obviously reasonable concern. And I am calling them out for deleting opposing viewpoints and asking for them to take responsibility, not for being wrong.
Could it be possible that comments with hyperlinks are deleted regardless of content in order to stop the proliferation of spam in the comments section? Instead of leaping to the conclusion that there is some nefarious plot by SCW to silence dissenting opinions or quash criticism, could there a valid reason to not permit comments with hyperlinks? Granted, I only did a quick search, but i could not find another comment with a link.
It might be that hyperlinks are automatically deleted, since I posted a reply yesterday with a helpful link to Harris County FWS in response to people asking about bayou levels in their areas, but it has since vanished.
On the other hand, two replies by “Keith” on this same thread have hyperlinks and are still up, so…
Can we get an official ruling on whether hyperlinks are allowed or not?
lol what a douche bag. you can be right without being a total ass. if your previous comment was this salty, no wonder it got deleted.
Yeah, we’d all love to be able to predict the future, because uncertainty is frightening. But there’s no need to be uncivil & I agree with Boris, it probably wasn’t your prediction skills that warranted a deleted post. And it’s certainly not Eric’s fault that people live in flood zones.
I stand behind Lawfox comment and replies in this thread.
Like the great country saying, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day”
Maybe you should take over this great enterprise? That way it would NEVER be wrong
Weird, Lawfox… looks like you were wrong in your predictions, too. Not that easy, is it? Go troll another blog.
Did Beta already use up all the dry air that was hopefully going to knock down rain totals?
https://www.weathernerds.org/satellite/?initsatsrc=On&initsatname=GOES16&initsattype=wv&initcscheme=ir1&initimdimx=1050&initimdimy=630&initrange=55.000000000000:-130.000000000000:20.000000000000:-60.000000000000&initloop=True&initnframes=20&initlightning16=On&initlightning17=Off&initltngfed=Off&initltngtoe=Off&initinterstates=On&initwarnings=On&initlatlon=Off&initascata=Off&initascatb=Off&initascatc=Off&initascatamba=Off&initascatambb=Off&initascatambc=Off&initsst=Off
If you look at the above water vapor loop you will see plenty of dry air surrounding the storm system. Probably the only thing keeping us from an Allison type flood event.
I’m in Friendswood along Clear Creek. Just moved my car to high ground at a grocery store a half mile away and used my Space City Weather No-Hype umbrella to walk home in a downpour. Please put rain boots in your next fundraiser!
Thank you for keeping us informed while Matt is on family duty.
To quote the sage Yogi Berra, “Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.”
I’m in western Houston and this storm has me shaking. Would it be safe to drive to Austin right now? I’m not from here.
Yes it would be safe. Just take care when you pass through stretches of heavier rainfall.
I have family traveling home from San Angelo to Pearland tomorrow. Is it going to be safe for them to drive here? If so, what would be the best way? Beltway?
Looking at the radar and snapshots, it seems like the Stage 3 Houston metro along and south of 10 instruction is primarily applicable to the Galleria/Uptown and points east to Baytown. Am I right I’m thinking that Memorial west to Sealy should expect Stage 1, maybe Stage 2?
Eh – we’re in Westchase and I see strong possibility of 10-year flood levels.
Spring Branch is already at 7-8 inches and it just started raining harder here again. I think we’re already past a Stage 1 here, though fortunately we’re generally less flood-prone than other parts of town.
Just drove into work in Galleria area, took Woodway from 610 so I could get a look at the Bayou, it’s 3-4 feet below the bridge, so at this point it’s likely that woodway will flood, I doubt we’ll see much street flooding through the area similar to Post Oak Blvd during Imelda
…meaning it won’t be similar to Imelda and that POB will be fine, jumbled my words.
Whats the chances that the Beaumont area receives similar rain totals between today and tomorrow as the storm system shifts east?!?
https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/tx/beaumont
Looks like Beaumont will get theirs later this afternoon. I would double the rainfall estimate based on what we are seeing here in Houston.
Seems like the last few years rainfall models have either way under or over estimated rainfall during more extreme events. Am I wrong? Can the errors be timed to the removal of the data collection facility near I believe Bay City?
IIRC the bulk of our modeling data comes from Lake Charles and Corpus Christi. If so we are on the extremes of either station.
At 290 and 43rd St. I emptied the rain gauge last night at 10pm with just under 2.5″. Checked it at 9:30am today and was surprised to see it full at 5″
Has been more rain than expected, but finally seems to have paused here, which should allow the water ponding on streets to clear. This is almost like Imelda, which came almost exactly one year ago, and caused more flooding than anticipated, including neighborhoods that hadn’t flooded during Ike and Harvey.
@Ichneumon Welp, i went to other threads to try to find links when i should have just looked below. fair point. i guess its not automatic deletion of hyperlinks.