Discussion – 

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Discussion – 

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Hurricane Nicholas makes landfall between Matagorda and Freeport

Hurricane Nicholas has officially made landfall early this morning near Sargent. The center came onshore about 20 miles northeast of Matagorda or 25 miles west/southwest of Freeport. Unlike more organized hurricanes, this one is being impacted by strong upper-level wind shear. Nearly all the precipitation and strong winds are in the eastern semicircle. While the western semicircle is typically weaker in the northern hemisphere, this storm doesn’t even have rain in the western semicircle.

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Now that Nicholas has made landfall, we will start seeing the maximum winds decrease. Nicholas will quickly transition back to a tropical storm and eventually a depression over the next day. Even though the winds will decrease, the heavy rain threat will increase today across the Golden Triangle and Southwest Lousiana.

I’ll admit – we’ve been blessed thus far with the heaviest rains remaining off-shore. There is an increasing probability that Houston proper will miss out on flooding rains – or at least not get the ridiculously high rainfall amounts that looked possible just one day ago. This shift is thanks to the storm moving more easterly – and upper-level wind shear keeps more rain off-shore.

Nevertheless, I do expect we’ll see heavier rain bands move onshore later this morning and later today. Nicholas is moving north/northeast at 10 MPH but will slow in forward speed later today. It will stick around through Wednesday morning before exiting Texas to the east. Perhaps, with some luck, we can keep the heaviest rains offshore today. The heavier rain bands could drop three to four inches of rain per hour.

 

David Reimer

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