Post by ExquisiteGerbil on Jul 7, 2024 2:12:41 GMT -5
Texas Declares Disaster Areas Ahead of Hurricane Beryl Landfall RANDY CLARK 6 Jul 2024
Texas officials added 81 additional counties to the state’s disaster declaration in preparation for Hurricane Beryl’s arrival. The storm’s forecasted path shifted the expected landfall to the north and east of previous projections. The latest addition to the disaster declaration list brings the total number of Texas counties to 121.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is sitting in for Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The governor is traveling in East Asia on an economic development project. Patrick will be at the helm as acting governor when Beryl strikes the Texas coast on Monday. Governor Patrick urged Texans to make final preparations for Hurricane Beryl’s landfall; warning time was winding down as the storm approached the Texas Gulf Coast.
“As Hurricane Beryl approaches the Gulf Coast, today and tomorrow will be the last 2 days for Texans to make preparations for the coming storm,’ Patrick warned. “Beryl is a determined storm, and incoming winds and potential flooding will pose a serious threat to Texans who are in Beryl’s path at landfall and as it makes its way across the state for the following 24 hours.”
Patrick warned residents that localized flooding and heavy rain could occur in areas further from the coast near College Station, Tyler, and Texarkana as the storm moves through Texas on its current track. “The track may change over the next 40 hours,” Patrick added. “Texans need to take heed, watch their local officials, and prepare today and tomorrow before the storm makes landfall early Monday morning.”
The 81 Texas counties added to Patrick’s disaster declaration include Anderson, Angelina, Austin, Bastrop, Bell, Bowie, Brazoria, Brazos, Burleson, Caldwell, Camp, Cass, Chambers, Cherokee, Collin, Colorado, Comal, Dallas, Delta, Ellis, Falls, Fannin, Fayette, Fort Bend, Franklin, Freestone, Galveston, Grayson, Gregg, Grimes, Guadalupe, Hardin, Harris, Harrison, Hays, Henderson, Hill, Hopkins, Houston, Hunt, Jasper, Jefferson, Kaufman, Lamar, Lee, Leon, Liberty, Limestone, Madison, Marion, McLennan, Milam, Montgomery, Morris, Nacogdoches, Navarro, Newton, Orange, Panola, Polk, Rains, Red River, Robertson, Rockwall, Rusk, Sabine, San Augustine, San Jacinto, Shelby, Smith, Titus, Travis, Trinity, Tyler, Upshur, Van Zandt, Walker, Waller, Washington, Williamson, and Wood counties. Patrick warned that more counties could be added if conditions warranted it.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Tropical Storm Beryl is expected to intensify as it moves northwest through the Gulf of Mexico before taking a northerly turn and making landfall as a hurricane along the mid-Texas coast on Monday.
As the storm nears, cities along the Texas Gulf Coast have issued warnings and advisories asking visitors to the popular beach cities to avoid travel to the area and in some cases have enacted mandatory evacuations for non-resident tourists. In Corpus Christi, city officials asked tourists to the beach city to consider departing early due to anticipated flooding along coastal areas.
The popular beach city of Port Aransas, located on Mustang Island, announced a mandatory visitor evacuation for all non-residents of the island beach community on Sunday. The order went into effect at noon.
Meteorologists' Fear Becoming Grim Reality as Record-Smashing Storm Beryl Turns Toward Texas
By The Associated Press
July 6, 2024 at 4:59am
With its unprecedented tear through the ultrawarm waters of the southeast Caribbean, Hurricane Beryl turned meteorologists’ worst fears of a souped-up hurricane season into grim reality. Now it’s Texas turn.
Beryl hit Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 2 hurricane on Friday, then weakened to a tropical storm. It’s expected to reach southern Texas by Sunday night or Monday morning, regaining hurricane status as it crosses over the toasty Gulf of Mexico.
National Hurricane Center senior specialist Jack Beven said Beryl is likely to make landfall somewhere between Brownsville and a bit north of Corpus Christi on Monday. The hurricane center forecasts it will hit as a strong Category 1 storm, but wrote, “This could be conservative if Beryl stays over water longer” than expected.
The waters in the Gulf of Mexico are warm enough for the early-season storm to rapidly intensify, as it has several times before.
“We should not be surprised if this is rapidly intensifying before landfall, and it could become a major hurricane,” said Weather Underground co-founder Jeff Masters, a former government hurricane meteorologist who flew into storms. “Category 2 may be more likely, but we should not dismiss a Category 3 possibility.”
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Beven said the official forecast has Beryl gaining 17 to 23 mph in wind speed in 24 hours, but he noted the storm intensified more rapidly than forecasters expected earlier in the Caribbean.
“People in southern Texas now need to really keep an eye on the progress of Beryl,” Beven said.
Masters and University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy said hurricane center forecasters have been very accurate in predicting Beryl’s track so far.
Already three times in its one-week life, Beryl has gained 35 mph in wind speed in 24 hours or less, the official weather service definition of rapid intensification.
The storm zipped from 35 mph to 75 mph on June 28. It went from 80 mph to 115 mph in the overnight hours of June 29 into June 30, and on July 1 it went from 120 mph to 155 mph in just 15 hours, according to hurricane center records.
Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach, using a different tracking system, said he counted eight different periods when Beryl rapidly intensified — something that has only happened in the Atlantic in July two other times.
MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel doesn’t give Beryl “much of a chance″ for another 35 mph wind speed jump in the Gulf of Mexico, but said it’s a tricky thing to forecast.
Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm shows the literal hot water the Atlantic and Caribbean are in right now and the figurative hot water the Atlantic hurricane belt can expect for the rest of the storm season, experts said.
The storm smashed various records even before its major hurricane-level winds approached the island of Carriacou in Grenada on Monday.
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Beryl set the record for the earliest Category 4 with winds of at least 130 mph — the first-ever category 4 in June. It also was the earliest storm to rapidly intensify with wind speeds jumping 63 mph in 24 hours, going from an unnamed depression to a Category 4 in 48 hours.
Colorado State University’s Klotzbach called Beryl a harbinger.
Forecasters predicted months ago it was going to be a nasty year, and now they are comparing it to record busy 1933 and deadly 2005 — the year of Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Dennis.
“This is the type of storm that we expect this year, these outlier things that happen when and where they shouldn’t,” McNoldy said. “Not only for things to form and intensify and reach higher intensities, but increase the likelihood of rapid intensification.”
Warm water acts as fuel for the thunderstorms and clouds that form hurricanes. The warmer the water and thus the air at the bottom of the storm, the better the chance it will rise higher in the atmosphere and create deeper thunderstorms, said the University at Albany’s Kristen Corbosiero.
“So when you get all that heat energy, you can expect some fireworks,” Masters said.
Atlantic waters have been record warm since April 2023. Klotzbach said a high pressure system that normally sets up cooling trade winds collapsed then and hasn’t returned.
A brewing La Nina, which is a slight cooling of the Pacific that changes weather worldwide, also may be a factor. Experts say La Nina tends to depress high altitude crosswinds that decapitate hurricanes.
Post by ExquisiteGerbil on Jul 8, 2024 3:03:55 GMT -5
Beryl to Regain Hurricane Strength Before Texas Landfall Monday
BOB PRICE 7 Jul 2024
Tropical Storm Beryl is expected to regain its status as a Category 1 or 2 hurricane prior to making landfall Monday morning on the mid-Texas coast. Officials with the National Hurricane Center warn of flooding threats from tidal surges and intense rainfall.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) reports wind speeds in Tropical Storm Beryl of 65 miles per hour with higher gusts. The winds are expected to increase to Category 1 hurricane speeds of up to 85 miles per hour before making its Texas landfall near Matagorda Bay. Forecasters say Beryl could possibly reach Cat 2 status.
Beryl Wind Forecast -- NHC
Officials report the primary danger from Beryl will be tidal surges of four to six feet from Matagorda Bay to San Luis Pass and localized rainfall of up to 15 inches.
The NHC also warns of possible tornado activity along the middle and upper Texas coastal region.
Despite warnings of heavy surf and dangerous rip currents, surfers took to the beaches near Port Aransas, Texas. Officials warn of life-threatening dangers from these conditions.
Hurricane-force winds are expected to reach the Texas coastal region after midnight Monday morning, the forecast states. After moving inland along a northwest track, the storm is expected to turn northward west of the Houston metropolitan area and then northeast into deep East Texas by Monday afternoon.