Prolonged and potentially significant coastal flood event increasing for the upper and middle TX coast.
USAF mission just arriving into the area in the southwest Gulf of Mexico and will see what the data shows over the next few hours and if the system will be upgraded
90L has continued to show signs of organization today with various bursts of deep convection in an near a likely center.
There remains significant uncertainty in the track guidance, but maybe a slight bit of consensus through about 48-72 hours where most of the global model guidance drifts 90L, N or NNW at a slow forward motion. This place the system somewhere over the NW Gulf of Mexico off the TX coast early next week in a very weak steering environment. After that the fragile consensus begins to fall apart with some models taking the system toward the west, other looping it SW and yet other lifting it NE and ENE. Additionally, all the models have varying speeds as to how this all plays out with some very slow and other slightly faster.
If you can’t tell from above…the uncertainty is extremely low.
Impacts:
There is enough confidence that an increasing pressure gradient between the deepening low to the south and strong high pressure to the north will result in increasing ENE/NE winds across much of the NW and N Gulf starting this weekend and increasing into early next week. This long fetch will result in water transport toward the coast and will also build seas to 10-15 feet over the NW Gulf by early next week. Coastal tides are already elevated and will remain around 2.0 ft MLLW on Saturday and then begin to rise to near 4.5-5.5 feet MLLW (barnacle level) on Sunday. These levels will reach our coastal flood warning thresholds and expect impacts along the coast starting Sunday and lasting well into next week. Significant beach and dune erosion will be possible along with inundation of low lying areas that are prone to high tides. Travel could become impacted in coastal areas at times of high tides along with low lying areas in coastal SE Harris County especially around Clear Lake.
Jeff Lindner
Director Hydrologic Operations Division/Meteorologist
Harris County Flood Control District