Erin Rains to Drench Waterlogged Texas
UPDATE: An interview from this morning with Joe Bastardi regarding Tropical Storm Erin is below. Here he takes some issue with The NHC forecasts and decision to not send in a recon plane until today. Since this taping they have both sent in the recon and upgraded the storm.
Tropical Storm Erin looks pretty healthy on the Enhanced Infrared Satellite this morning (The NHC [JessePedia] just just reported at 10:15 AM CDT "DATA FROM A NOAA RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT TROPICAL DEPRESSION FIVE IN THE GULF OF MEXICO HAS REACHED TROPICAL STORM STRENGTH AND IS NOW TROPICAL STORM ERIN.")
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The models are pretty much in agreement that southern Texas will be the landfall point for the storm, as you can see from the Model Spread [JessePedia] below:
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But since it will be relatively weak when it hits,* the real story will be the rainfall, which couldn't hit at a worse place.
Above is the difference compared to normal of precipitation for July 2007 from the NWS Gauge-Adjusted Doppler-Precip Map -- some of these areas were more than 600 percent above normal last month! Now compare that to our latest rainfall prediction map and you'll see what I'm talking about:
*AccuWeather.com Professional's Joe Bastardi [BIO] (PRO) says that he believes Erin could strengthen more than people think, and that it could being as much as 18 inches of rain to the Hill Country of Texas. And to make matters worse, some models are now saying Tropical Storm Dean is bound for the same place.