Look skyward: Rain still in forecast
Published 4:44 pm Tuesday, September 11, 2018
By Lorenzo Salinas
Residents looking for a ray of sunshine sometime this week may need to wait a little longer.
The official forecast for the southeast Texas area continues to be filled with cloudy skies and rainy days, in addition to a possible tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico by the end of the week.
Seth Worthen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the National Hurricane Center is currently looking at an area of disturbed weather in the Caribbean Sea that shows signs of circulation.
“In the next 48 hours, there’s a 30 percent chance of formation. In the next five days, there’s a 60 percent chance of formation,” Worthen said.
The National Hurricane Center has recently updated the chances for a tropical development to 70 percent by the end of the week.
However, he remained skeptical about the disturbance forming into anything severe.
“There’s nothing really turning this thing into a tropical storm,” Worthen said. “If it can, by the time it gets to the Gulf area it’s not going to have enough time to get very strong.”
Worthen predicted it wouldn’t exceed the status of either a tropical depression or a low-grade tropical storm.
“The forecast tracks it as making some kind of landfall along the lower Texas coast. But, really, the entire Texas coast should be monitoring it.”
While Worthen said the streak of rainy weather Southeast Texas has received for the past several days is reflective of a “fairly normal summer pattern,” he said there was more moisture than the average summer day.
“There’s a remnant sunken over the area that’s helping keep moisture in the area…” he said. “This is what’s been leading to the development of a number of thunderstorms.”
He pointed out the forecast for the rest of the week would continue to include rainfall due to the tropical development that would have entered the Gulf by then.
“Really, every day is going to have the chance of seeing one to two inches of rain,” Worthen said. “Or two to four inches in some areas. It really depends.”
According to current estimates, Southeast Texas would see a widespread one to two inches of rain for the rest of the week with localized flooding in some areas.
“With the tropics heating up, it’s best to keep an eye on the forecast,” Worthen said.
The 2018 hurricane season has reached its official peak Sep. 10. Worthen said so far the level of activity has stayed pretty close to what meteorologists predicted for this time of year.
2018 has seen nine active tropical cyclones and storms form so far with four of those going on to form hurricanes. If the disturbance that would enters the Gulf later this week forms into a tropical cyclone, it would be the 10th one of the season.
