Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Alex - Better News for Houston Area

Houston area breathing a little easier this Tuesday morning with latest round of models indicating northern Mexico/south Texas landfall very early Thursday much more likely. Looks like the storm will be a Category 2 at landfall. If the storm does manage to jog a big further to north and make landfall around Port Mansfield...surge will be much higher toward Corpus and impact will be much improved for lower Rio Grande Valley. Still too soon to tell for sure with error plus/minus about 100 miles at this point.

Houston area impacts...2 to 4 foot storm surge...rain bands.

The storm is large...so all of Texas coast getting some impact.

For lower Texas coast...up to 8 foot storm surge...be ready for it by Wednesday afternoon. Lots of rain and winds could be 95 to 100 at landfall.

Models have come back into agreement this afternoon and the storm is no moving toward northwest (instead of North-northwest)...so turning has begun.

Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman

Alex Update

Technical trouble updating my figures...sorry about that.

I've been watching the models and of course the storm. Very little steering this storm. Models have been all over the place. My feeling is that the storm will move in around Corpus and head north-northwest bringing rain to south and southeast Texas. However, with the last round of model runs...I am seeing at least one favored model supporting a close to valley hit. The storm is having to deal with some wind shear and the fact that it is not moving much is not optimal for development, due to upwelling of cooler water.

Remember that we still have large errors 2 to 3 days out. So, there is still a lot of uncertainty.

At a minimum, get your supplies together and be thinking about potential flooding.

More to come!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman