Tropical Trouble All Over The Place: Texas Now The Focus

Gorgeous but dangerous Hurricane Humberto approaching Bermuda
this morning.

Tropical storms and hurricanes seem to be popping up all over the place, so I'm sure the people at the National Hurricane Center are wicked busy!

With the glaring exception of the upper Texas coast, there is no immediate threat to land in the United States, but plenty to watch. 

IMELDA

First let's get to that situation in Texas. As I mentioned a few days ago, it has been rather dry in and around Houston, Texas lately, so residents there at first were gratefully watching a weather disturbance move westward across the Gulf of Mexico toward them, promising some drought-busting rains.

However they do things big in Texas and the rain has become way too much of a good thing.

As the disturbance neared the Texas coast in the past couple of days, it looked more and more like a tropical storm trying to form. Things escalated quickly on Tuesday, even with prior forecasts warning of heavy rains and floods with this thing.

At around noon Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center noted the definite circulation of the storm just off the Texas coast and declared it a tropical depression. Within 45 minutes, it strengthened enough, with top winds of 40 mph, to be declared Tropical Storm Imelda.

Less than an hour after that, Imelda made landfall near Freeport, Texas.  Since it went inland, the winds weakened and it soon was back to being a tropical depression. So this was one of the shortest lives I've seen for a tropical storm in a long time.

But Imelda's rains are lasting a long time, and that's the problem.  People in Houston and much of the rest of coastal Texas are always jittery when there are flood alerts, given the extreme havoc Hurricane Harvey caused in 2017.

This situation is no Harvey, but the flooding from ex-Imelda is definitely ramping up.

According to Houston meteorologist Matt Lanza (@mattlanza) Houston as of early this morning has escaped with little flooding, though areas south of the city have had torrential rains and flash flooding.  A few spots received up to five inches of rain in an hour. Reports out of Matagorda County indicate up to 20 inches of rain already.

The rain could ramp up in Houston itself later today.

There is a flood risk in eastern Texas from the former Imelda through tomorrow.

HUMBERTO

Hurricane Humberto has really cranked up with top winds of 115 mph. It looks like it will come very close to Bermuda tonight or early tomorrow, blasting them with hurricane force winds. Then it will thankfully keep heading northeastward, further and further away from us. Good riddance!

This is a large storm, with hurricane force winds extending out 60 miles from its eye. Tropical storm-force winds go out 175 miles. Despite the fact it's missing the United States by a wide margin, there will be dangerous swells and rip currents for the next few days.

JERRY

Tropical storm Jerry formed overnight way out over the central Atlantic, way east of the Leeward Islands. It is expected to grow into a hurricane and could threaten those islands in a couple days. Beyond that, it's not known yet where it will head. Earlier indications are it will turn north before reaching the United States, but that is definitely not guaranteed.