Third Round of Heavy Rain Set to Sucker Punch South
Adding insult to injury, Texas is looking at another shot of heavy rain and severe weather on Thursday. The storm system currently providing hefty mountain snowfall to the western U.S. will slide its way southeast through the end of the week. That means more Flash Flood Watches for Texas and the south.
By rush hour Thursday morning, strong storms will begin building in a line near I-35 from Dallas to San Antonio. A cold front moving east into the afternoon will interact with moisture coming in off the Gulf of Mexico to fire up the potential for severe weather. A slight risk is already in place from San Antonio, TX to Evansville, IN. The primary threat will be damaging wind gusts greater than 60 mph.
Parts of southwest Texas and the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area will be under a Flash Flood Watch all day Thursday. The bullseye of heaviest rain will bring widespread totals between 1 – 3″, with isolated spots seeing up to 4 – 6″
The ground is already saturated in this part of the country. In fact, many rivers in Texas are still experiencing moderate to major flooding from the last round of rain over the weekend. Just how much rain has fallen with these back to back storms? The numbers support a historically wet year. The chart below highlights how many observation sites in the Houston area that have seen above average rainfall since January 1, 2015. Eleven cities have experienced their wettest year-to-date on record.
(Rain Chart Courtesy of NWS Houston)
For WeatherNation: Meteorologist, Mike Witcher
