Go Back
Tropical depression forms in the Gulf of Mexico. Click to see where it is headed. Chevron right
The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season is now underway. Find out how many storms are forecast to develop this year. Chevron right

Ashburn, VA

59°F
Location Chevron down
Location News Videos
Use Current Location
Recent

Ashburn

Virginia

59°
No results found.
Try searching for a city, zip code or point of interest.
settings
Ashburn, VA Weather
Today WinterCast Local {stormName} Tracker Hourly Daily Radar MinuteCast Monthly Air Quality Health & Activities

Around the Globe

Hurricane Tracker

Severe Weather

Radar & Maps

News

News & Features

Astronomy

Business

Climate

Health

Recreation

Sports

Travel

Video

Podcasts

Winter Center

Top Stories AccuWeather Early AccuWeather Prime Astronomy Climate Travel Health Recreation Business Sports
Air Quality Alert

News / Hurricane

Hurricane Nicholas hammers Gulf Coast communities

After strengthening into a hurricane mere hours before landfall, Nicholas dealt a scathing blow to Texan cities prone to flooding and could further complicate recovery in areas ravaged by Ida.

By Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer

Updated Sep 15, 2021 1:44 PM EDT

Copied

Nicholas came blasting ashore just after midnight on Tuesday as a Category 1 hurricane, the second hurricane to make landfall in the United States this season and the 19th named storm to hit the U.S. in the last 17 months. Under the dark of night, Nicholas unleashed wind gusts as high as 95 mph near where it made landfall, causing all manners of damage, and drenching rains that, combined with storm surge, resulted in widespread flooding.

And Nicholas reached hurricane force just prior to landfall, overcoming multiple atmospheric conditions to do so.

"Things are -- starting to get a little gusty."

Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer stood on the beach of Matagorda Peninsula, Texas, on Monday, Sept. 13. The landfall of then-Tropical Storm Nicholas wouldn't happen until after midnight, but already he was experiencing sustained winds of tropical-storm-force "that'll almost take your breath away," as Timmer described between the gusts.

As it lurked off the coast of Texas, Nicholas sat on the brink of hurricane force. The warm water of the Gulf of Mexico was prime fuel for the storm, but its proximity to shore and wind shear were enough to prolong any meaningful strengthening at the time. However, Texans weren't about to stall preparations even for a tropical storm.

The Galveston County Office of Emergency Management began staging its high water assets on Sunday, the day Nicholas had been named, to prepare for the potential flooding from the storm.

"Just because it's a tropical storm or even a depression doesn't mean that it's less volatile of a situation than a hurricane," Jake Hardgrave, a volunteer at the Texas Search and Rescue (TEXSAR), told AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell. "Historically, it could be worse [than a hurricane]."

CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP

As the night went on, Nicholas gathered strength. It overcame the wind shear and its proximity land to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane by Monday night before landfall just after midnight and less than 70 miles from where Harvey had come ashore in 2017. After Hurricane Ida, Nicholas became the second hurricane to make landfall over the U.S. during the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season.

John Lambert, a resident of Seabrook, Texas, had gone to bed underestimating Nicholas, only to wake up in the middle of the night after the storm had been upgraded and was making landfall. Seabrook is located roughly 80 miles northeast of Matagorda, between Houston and Galveston.

Tropical Storm Nicholas
Twitter

"Started off kinda slow and then it worked up to a good howl. About 2 o'clock in the morning it started rolling in and [I] noticed a lot of branches and trees coming down," Lambert told Wadell. "And then the rain started picking up a little bit and coming, like Forrest Gump said, 'coming in sideways.'"

Video of the storm tearing through Surfside Beach, Texas, shows fierce winds howling through flooded streets. Storm surge inundated houses and businesses alike. Whether or not sandbags lurked beneath the water, one market filmed had not been able to prevent the storm surge from seeping in and flooding the shop.

Through Tuesday afternoon, Galveston, Texas, had seen some of the heaviest rainfall from Nicholas, and while Nicholas impacted some of the same areas as Harvey did during 2017, it hasn't dumped nearly as much rain on the area. AccuWeather forecasters estimated many locations would receive around 4 to 8 inches of rainfall from Monday through Wednesday from the storm, and locations around Houston seeing 8 to 12 inches of rainfall with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 24 inches. Galveston picked up nearly 14 inches of rainfall over the past 48 hours. Harvey, in comparison, had unleashed more than 60 inches of rainfall across parts of southeast Texas.

Storm surge ushered in by Nicholas exacerbated the results of the rainfall, leading many to wake up Tuesday morning and find their vehicles submerged. While Seabrook has no storm surge gauges, the stations to the north and south had 4- and 4.2-foot storm surge, respectively.

Houston and surrounding areas are particularly susceptible to flooding compared to other cities mainly due to the mainly clay-based soil that it's built upon.

"This type of soil isn't especially capable of draining water quickly," AccuWeather Meteorologist Maxwell Gawryla explained, as the soil leaves the opportunity for more standing water. The bayous can also play a role in flooding when heavy and widespread rain douses the area, the slow-moving bayous not allowing for quick drainage.

Hurricane Nicholas Top Wind Gusts

As with other tropical systems, strong winds combined with high-rising waters to pose additional dangers to residents. More than 200,000 Texans awoke without power early Tuesday morning, with at least 172,000 them in the Houston area, according to PowerOutage.US. And that number climbed by to above half of a million by late morning. By noon, local time, the number of customers without power across Texas had dropped below 500,000. Power crews continued to work Tuesday night, and just over 120,000 customers were still without electricity as of early Wednesday morning.

While Nicholas hit as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph -- the threshold for Category 1 strength -- Matagorda Bay recorded gusts of up to 95 mph. The gusts were not constant, but the strength of these bursts was just under what would be considered Category 2 strength for a hurricane.

The canopy of one gas station in Matagorda buckled amid the strong winds, toppling sideways as one pillar still clung to its base.

As the day progressed Tuesday, Nicholas skirted to the northeast, barreling toward communities recently hit by Ida and others still recovering from last year's Hurricane Laura.

Entergy, an energy company that provides power across portions of the Gulf Coast, released a statement Tuesday morning that Nicholas could adversely affect their restoration operations from Hurricane Ida. Two weeks after the Category 4 hurricane hit Louisiana, the company had restored power to just over 90% of its total customers that had previously lost power from the hurricane. The company now estimates that power will be restored to the heaviest-damaged areas around Sept. 29.

More to read:

Weather News 17-year-old future founding father wrote gripping letter on extreme weather
Hurricane Radar and the reporter: Legendary broadcast changed hurricane coverage
Hurricane Where Ida stands among the worst hurricanes to hit Louisiana

Additional reporting by AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell.

For the latest weather news check back on AccuWeather.com. Watch AccuWeather Network on DIRECTV, DIRECTVstream, Frontier, Spectrum, fuboTV, Philo, and Verizon Fios. AccuWeatherNOW is streaming on Roku and XUMO.

Report a Typo
Comments that don't add to the conversation may be automatically or manually removed by Facebook or AccuWeather. Profanity, personal attacks, and spam will not be tolerated.
Comments
Hide Comments

Weather News

Severe Weather

Risk of severe storms to linger across central US

Jun. 2, 2023
Astronomy

June’s short nights to bring plenty of stargazing opportunities

May 31, 2023
Weather Forecasts

Chicago summer forecast: AccuWeather calling for more heat than 2022

May 31, 2023
Show more Show less Chevron down

Topics

Top Stories

AccuWeather Early

AccuWeather Prime

Astronomy

Climate

Travel

Health

Recreation

Business

Sports

Top Stories

Hurricane

Tropical depression forms in Gulf of Mexico

8 hours ago

Weather Forecasts

Dramatic cooldown to follow surge of warmth

12 minutes ago

Weather Forecasts

AccuWeather’s 2023 Europe summer forecast

1 day ago

Health

Wildfire smoke not entirely to blame for poor air quality in Northeast

1 day ago

Hurricane

AccuWeather's 2023 Atlantic hurricane season forecast

16 hours ago

More Stories

Featured Topic

Your Local Asthma Forecast

Featured Stories

Travel

Search suspended for Va. man who went overboard from cruise ship

20 hours ago

Live Blog

Astronomy news: New record set during private SpaceX mission

LATEST ENTRY

17 humans briefly orbited Earth at the same time

20 hours ago

Sports

Dramatic rescue caught on camera after woman falls into raging rapids

2 days ago

AccuWeather Hurricane Hurricane Nicholas hammers Gulf Coast communities
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs AccuWeather Connect Podcast RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
Company
Proven Superior Accuracy About AccuWeather Digital Advertising Careers Press Contact Us
Products & Services
For Business For Partners For Advertising AccuWeather APIs AccuWeather Connect Podcast RealFeel® and RealFeel Shade™
Apps & Downloads
iPhone App Android App See all Apps & Downloads
Subscription Services
AccuWeather Premium AccuWeather Professional
More
AccuWeather Ready Business Health Hurricane Leisure and Recreation Severe Weather Space and Astronomy Sports Travel Weather News Winter Center
© 2023 AccuWeather, Inc. "AccuWeather" and sun design are registered trademarks of AccuWeather, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | Do Not Sell My Data checkmark Confirmed Not Selling Your Data

We have updated our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

I Understand

Get AccuWeather alerts as they happen with our browser notifications.

Notifications Enabled

Thanks! We’ll keep you informed.

FEEDBACK