The official TS Harvey thread

[AustinN4]

 

[AustinN4]

Looks like I get my wish for rain in Austin but I did not have this much in mind when I did. Stay safe in SE Texas.

 

[rman]

i don't know if it's related, but I drove through a thick storm in DeRidder, LA, and 2 pretty big storms in Bryan/College Station last night...

I wonder if we'll get anything up in DFW

 

[AustinN4]

I wonder if we'll get anything up in DFW

You'll probably get some, but nothing like Victoria to Houston on the coast. 20" of rain is downright scary! Based on the San Antonio projection, Austin is likely to get at least 10".

 

[Mikewood]

Looks like it might make landfall about Corpus so here in Houston we should get about 20" or so. Time to blow off the back deck and check the drainage. Will post pics as the weather progresses.


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[rman]

You'll probably get some, but nothing like Victoria to Houston on the coast. 20" of rain is downright scary! Based on the San Antonio projection, Austin is likely to get at least 10".

no kidding!

I drove through Hearne last night and driving through 2-3" standing water was a little dicey haha... I was in a rental Challenger so that made it a little more fun though.

also drove through Beaumont and Baytown, signs were saying to fill up on gas... it wasn't until I hit TX-6 that signs started saying GTFO of the gulf coast

 

[Moonpie]

This track is about 3hrs old.

 

[roadkill]

Gonna be epic I'm afraid. Don't know if I'm hunkering in or running out yet. This storm has not been predictable at all.

 

[AustinN4]

I was living in Houston in 1983 and Alicia was pretty terrible. I hope it's not that bad this time. If I remember correctly, Alicia was the one that came up the ship channel and blew most of the glass out of the downtown office towers. I lived on the edge of downtown and the wind howled all night long, but luckily I didn't have any damage at my house.

 

[AustinN4]

Harvey is now a hurricane, meteorologists say
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/24/us/tropical-storm-harvey/index.html

Projected to become at Cat 3.

 

[benenglish]

I was living in Houston in 1983 and Alicia was pretty terrible.

I was living in the Gulfton Ghetto at the time but I remember the downtown damage. It was awful but it was mostly wind-related.

This time has the potential to be more like Allison - rain, rain, and more rain. I still remember some of those underpasses that filled with water so quickly that the traffic jams simply couldn't escape. When the water receded and we saw that, for example, 18-wheelers had floated up then come to rest atop small cars, I was incredibly happy that I lived well out of the city.

The afternoon that Allison geared up our job told everyone to go home. I lived, as the crow flies, less than a mile from my apartment. There were so many road closures that it took me over 4 hours to get home. Personally, I learned to hate driving long distances at crawling speed with two wheels up on the curb so that I don't drown the engine. And after all that work, I still lost the car when the apartment complex parking lot flooded to a depth of about 4 feet.

This time, I've got supplies and I'm hunkered down to ride it out. Once the rain hits here, I'm just not going outside for a few days.

If Houston gets lucky, of course, the storm may follow one of those spaghetti models that tracks it drifting west toward the valley. Most seem to say that it will dump all over SA then wander over here to Houston and I'm definitely not looking forward to it. The weather here, at a bit after noon on Thursday, is clear, warm, sunny, gorgeous. What it will look like in a couple of days holds great potential for worry.

Prayers sent up in advance for the folks in the path. Stay safe, folks.

 

[AustinN4]

This time has the potential to be more like Allison - rain, rain, and more rain.

TS Allison 2001, right? Never made it hurricane status but the loss of life and damage was devistating anyway: http://abc13.com/weather/harveys-rainfall-could-match-scale-of-allison/2334621/
I had aleady moved to Austin by that time. Stay high, dry and safe!

 

[AustinN4]

AAS (Austin American Statesman) 12:20 p.m. update: "Authorities in Corpus Christi launched a voluntary evacuation Thursday afternoon of the Gulf Coast city, which sits squarely in the bull’s eye of rapidly intensifying Hurricane Harvey.

"Additionally, areas near the city have begun to order their own mandatory evacuations. Authorities in Port Aransas, Rockport and Calhoun County are telling residents to clear out before the storm makes landfall, which is expected late Friday night."

Bold added by me.

 

[Kar98]

 

[AustinN4]

AAS 1 p.m. update: "It just keeps getting worse.

"The latest forecast from the National Hurricane Center says Harvey will be on the cusp of becoming treacherous Category 4 storm as it makes landfall late Friday or early Saturday, with wind speeds projected to hit 125 mph.

"That would mean Harvey would fall just 5 mph short of the 130 mph winds required to gain Category 4 status.

"Projections of Harvey’s strength have ramped up over the day as government forecasters and scientists have examined radar readouts and satellite images and flown hurricane hunter planes into the storm. Early this morning, computer models suggested the storm would only be a Category 1 storm at landfall.

"Now, Harvey would be the strongest storm to hit Texas in more than a decade. The storm is currently churning over the warm waters of the western Gulf of Mexico, which are fueling its exploding strength. And there is little in the way of atmospheric interference to slow down its rapid development.

"The hurricane’s course and speed appear to be holding constant, setting up a potential worst case scenario, where Harvey stalls out and dumps torrential rains across flood-prone Central and South and Southeast Texas."

 

[benenglish]

TS Allison 2001, right? Never made it hurricane status but the loss of life and damage was devistating ...

That's the one. Lesson: High winds aren't required for a storm to do great damage. Dump enough water and stuff gets destroyed and lives are lost. Thus, when I see forecasts for 20+ inches of rain, I get a little nervous. Luckily, I live half-way up what passes for a hill in this part of the world and even Allison only flooded the two lowest houses in my subdivision.

This weekend, I'm probably going to find out if the flood abatement rules that must be followed by developers in Harris county are adequate to handle a bad rain. Unlike when Allison came through, my subdivision is no longer isolated with no buildings within a 1-mile radius. New subdivisions and/or roads have been built on all sides. If we have less rain than Allison but the water comes up higher into the subdivision, I'll know that things are worse.

My gut tells me that such will be the case.

 

[benenglish]

Where is the best place to find those spaghetti-looking path projection maps? As Harvey gets closer, the local media outlets have stopped showing them.

 

[roadkill]

http://spaghettimodels.com

 

[sucker76]

Welp just got done boarding the windows. I only did that because Harvey was upgraded to make landfall as cat 3 and I have a front and back window that will be very expensive to replace. I don't expect too bad winds but it's better to be safe than sorry. I'll see it work evacuates us or not in the morning.

 

[Kar98]

Texas facing catastrophic flooding as Harvey intensifies into a major hurricane that will bring life-threatening storm surge and up to 30 INCHES of rain when it makes landfall as a Category 3 storm