Houston NWS discussion 7/2
Posted by MGrid on 7/2/2010, 6:49 am
Long post, but it's quite a discussion.

Area forecast discussion
National Weather Service Houston/Galveston Texas
444 am CDT Friday Jul 2 2010


Discussion...
widespread rain over the southern half of the area with more rain showers
moving in from the Gulf. 6-11 inches of rain over the coastal
counties yesterday still pose a problem with the threat of heavy
rainfall continuing today. GPS ipwv showing 2.4" to 2.8" of
moisture to work with for storms today. Very impressive tropical
plume over Texas as part of Alex's remains. Weak boundary evident
in earlier surface plots looks to be moving inland and this is
probably good news for the hard hit areas yesterday. Plan to keep
the Flood Watch as is mainly the I-10 counties southward through
noon. Faster storm motion today should lower the flooding threat
somewhat so long as it doesn't start training over the heavily
populated areas. Extensive cloud cover and precipitation should hold down
temperatures and favored the cooler guidance numbers through
Sunday. The boundary lifts north Saturday with the very moist
airmass still available so have nudged up probability of precipitation through Saturday.
Models diverging with the NAM bringing in Lower-Middle level drying
from the Gulf Sunday whereas the GFS keeps it tracking SW toward
the lower coast so am expecting lower rain chances Sunday but then


it gets a bit more interesting as models continue to bring a low
west along the old frontal boundary in the NE Gulf. The European model (ecmwf)
places a very weak circulation in the utcw...the NAM south of
Houma la and the GFS near the Mississippi coast. Weak shear in the
vicinity of the suspected low warrants close monitoring of the
region but the upper ridging across North Texas should favor the
system not getting this far west...a definite stay tuned. And then
as if that isn't bad enough...the NAM/GFS/ECMWF are all working a
tropical wave into a tizzy in the western Caribbean on Monday
unfortunately the same upper ridging should be flattening and
shifting east opening up the western Gulf to this wave/tropical
system. Interestingly the 00z European model (ecmwf) looks like the 18z GFS which
has it nearing the Texas coast Friday the 9th. It is still to
early to hang a hat on this solution but should still point to the
possibility of something of interest in the western Gulf.


Rain chances should be coming down Monday and Tuesday as moisture thins
and upper ridging creeps southward.
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Houston NWS discussion 7/2 - MGrid, 7/2/2010, 6:49 am
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