About Houston weather conditions

[Lucy]

Hi all,

In case you're wondering, we're not under water, but fairly saturated. What's happening is that there are tall columns of Gulf moisture (not just the usual rain clouds) for great distances into the sky, so when the high temperatures would normally occur when the sun is realllly hot, it heats these things up, and they empty out on us...LOTS and LOTS of rain in short periods of time.

The high pressure area that had been causing our draught, (also keeping the former T.S. and hurricane headed more to the east) has now moved on, and was replaced by the current low pressure area that is here.

What the low pressure area does is give the moisture a little lift, and then it turns the big buckets over on us all at one time (this part I don't get either).

Right after the afternoon deluge, in comes the storm from west Texas, but the cool air didn't generate enough action, at least not so far (maybe it's not all here yet though). Anyway, this street flooding could happen every day throught at least next Tuesday.

Think Tuesday's about when Hurricane Emily's expected to make landfall, isn't it? If you'll notice, the projections keep gettting corrected in a more northerly direction. Even if the thing had gone in as expected earlier, a good ways south of Brownsville (on the southern tip of Tx), we still would eventually get more rain from it. Now, it looks as though we might be really close to some of the stronger aspects of that hurricane, so I've got to start thinking about whether to chance being without electricity here with Mom for any extended period during and after one of those things.

Problem is knowing when and where to go since the inland part of these big storms can get pretty nasty. I expect the after part of this one to be more to the west, but if it decides to really head north, that will make our destination a little more difficult to select.

Also, I'm anticipating difficulty convincing Mom she has to get out of here, and not mess around doing it. She's been through so many of these in her 84 yrs -- that makes it harder. I have too, but Alicia which came straight through downtown scared me a bit, particularly since I was all by myself in an upstairs building back then in the mid-eighties.

Anyway, today there was more street flooding because in specific geographic areas around the city there were 2 or more inches in maybe an hour. One area had significantly more than that.
Sooo..even though the drainage system, including all the bayous, was not the least overtaxed, these areas had to deal with temporary flooding as it just came to fast.

What happens is the drainage fills up in an area, and the street then becomes the part of the system which ultimately all dumps into the bayou systems which ultimately dump into the Gulf. This is why you don't want a hurricane with it's big surge coming in at high tide -- pushes all that Gulf water backwards through these bayous.

Did I mention that the steering currents of today's weather system were too weak to move the storm, and thus, the clouds stayed over the same areas, and those were the ones that had water collect faster than the system could drain? Welp, that's what happens sometimes.

This was the first time I remember the new rail system having to be shut down in one area since it opened. It wasn't built back when T.S. Allison flooded the whole city back in June of 2001, so lots of pumps have been installed along with other work down in the TxMedCenter which, as you'll probably recall, was terribly flooded then. At any rate, these next few days may be the first real test of the system.

There were lots of water rescues by EMS today since when people are traveling in areas they're not familiar with, they can't tell where high ground is, and they attempt to drive through water when they can't tell how deep it is. One rescue was of some visitors from New Jersey. They said they'd never seen anything like it. Hmm, thought they had rain in NJ. Ha!

Best thing to do when it rains hard here is to not try to drive through any high water, and just pull over to a higher area as soon as you can, and wait it out. I saw a car on tv that had just pulled up on the esplanade, and rain stopped before their car was damaged.

Another recommendation is to stay at work a little extra so the freeways won't be all tied up, or seek out a local restaurant for dinner before heading home. They didn't have a suggestion as to what we could eat if we react to multiple foods!

Welp, right now I have lots to test my bod's personal drainage system --so far, so good!

That's probably more than you wanted to know, but there it is.

Yours, Luce

[MaggieRedwings]

Morning Luce,

Glad to hear you are safe and not as wet as some. We got real reports of the gulley washers in your area on our local weather in PA.

Love, Maggie

[annie oakley]

Hi Lucy....Thats about what hubby said...he's in dickenson. stay dry Love oma

[moremuscle]

Wow, I have been so focused on the Tour that I have skipped all the regular news including wheather reports. I sounds as if you are having the cup full in Houston according to your description of the situation. Hopefully it will not worsen today - if you get a break in the rain perhaps the drainage system will be able to get back to normal and be prepared to take on a new downpour when it comes.

Driving in high water is no fun. We tried that last week on the way to Atlanta when part of the interstate was flooded. Like you said, you can't tell where the high ground is- we couldn't tell where the shoulder started either so I asked my husband to stay close to the middle of the road where the barricades were - at least that way we knew we weren't driving straight into the ditch on the side of the road.

Keep your mom safe!!

Love,
Karen

[Lucy]

Oma,

Dickison probably has gotten it much worse than we have, so your hubby is probably pretty tired of water by now. Will he have to stay there through the hurricane, even if it heads more toward the east?

Maggy,
We've not had further rain here since yesterday morning when it rained quite a bit, so that is good. Probably, the weekend will be wet, however, so ground will once again be saturated.

At this point in time, there's only about an 8 percent chance that the main part of the hurricane will hit here, but it's still not a done deal. With any luck, it'll go in at a relatively unpopulated area.

Btw, I wonder if G'Ma Mary is planning to evacuate. I certainly hope so! If she's at camp, surely they'll send everyone outa there.

Karen,
Having recently visited north of Atlanta city limits on the way to the mountains, I can appreciate how it must've felt being on the freeway there in a flood. It was scary enough to me when it was dry! Ha! By the way, I was thinking about ya'll when I was getting e-mails about all that bad weather and seeing some of it on tv during that time.

Think we'll be fine unless the thing takes an eastward turn, but wouldn't take much of a turn to effect us, given the size and potency of the thing. It's so much like Carla at this point in many ways, and Carla certainly had a great effect here, even as far north as Dallas.

Yours, Luce

[Tessa]

Hi, Lucy

I am glad you are safe and managing good in such conditions...


Take care,
Love,
Tessa.

[Wendy]

Luce, since here in Toronto we don't often have floods, or hurricanes, I have not been in your situation, and it scares me to death. I don't even understand all the terminology used, or the precaution's that you have to take when the weather gets like this. I don't know if I could ever get use to that. It must be pretty scary even if you have been through it before. When you see the news and see the rescues of people stranded or something you have to wonder why they would go into that area. But that is only because I have never been through it, or seen how quickly things can change in weather like that. Just stay safe and take all the precautions you can, and yup, I agree, get your mom out of there. It would scare me Luce, or you could say scare the crap out of me.

When you get a chance keep us updated, K.



Wendy

[Lucy]

Just had some rain this afternoon, so we're in really good shape, particularly since it appears we've dodged the bullet on the hurricane. Unfortunately, since we're on the east side of it, we'll likely get some tornados with the outer bands that drift over here..ugh, having already been hit by an F-1 this year, won't be to at ease with the bands as they move through, but wouldn't leave town because of that risk. That was the first time I've ever experienced something like that up close and personal.

Incidentally, I heard that some people down in Cozamel from the northeastern USA were making light of the evacuation down there where they were vacationing. I think they're in for a rude awakening about now if they stayed to ride it out!

Hurricane Emily appears to have gone a little more inland on the Penninsula than I'd thought it would from the tv pictures. Still, never count my chickens before they hatch on these things.

If you'd been here today, you wouldn't have known what the worry was about as it would've looked like an ordinary rain, but it's the tall columns of water overhead (from the Gulf) that create the potential of another Allison flood like we had in June of '01. Just imagine yourself sitting here with the Gulf of Mexico poised precariously overhead. Haha!

Really think we're going to do fine at this point, however, so will just update if something changes for the worse.

Yours, Luce

[JJ]

Hi Luce...I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Take care kiddo...JJ

[mjbonsais]

This Emily is catastrophic, as far as the Cazumel, Mexico etc.. Category 4. Utter devastation in that area of the world I would imagine. I live in South Florida and the meteorologists say that hurricanes are somewhat a rarity that far south in latitudes; the extremely warm Carribbean waters add to the intensity of them as well that far south. Be careful ok?

hugs and don't hesitate to move if waters are causing flooding.

Mary Jo

[Tessa]

Take care, Lucy... I hope it converts into a normal storm and noone is hurt.

Love,
Tessa.