Forget about Hurricane Katia, too far out in the Atlantic to bother anyone. The real action is brewing in the Gulf of Mexico, where a tropical wave has been getting itself together over the last day and is likely to congeal into Tropical Storm Lee.
The National Hurricane Center gives the system a 70% chance of reaching tropical storm status by Saturday. Although computer models can’t agree on where this slow drifting system might end up, the consensus seems to be that Louisiana and Texas could get drenched with as much as 20 inches of rain. Oil companies like BP and Anadarko are hurriedly shutting in production and evacuating all workers from Gulf facilities. So much for that Labor Day cookout.
I speak for Texas in saying: bring it on. This has been the driest summer in Houston history (check out the U.S. drought map here) and the hottest; Austin has recorded 75 days above 100 degrees, breaking the 1925 record.
Crops have turned to dust. Cattle are being culled because there’s no hay to feed them. Trees that usually don’t shed their leaves until November have already turned brown and given up on this year.
Indeed, Gov. Rick Perry issued a proclamation in April calling for a three-day prayer for rain. “I urge all Texans of all faiths and traditions to offer prayers on that day for the healing of our land, the rebuilding of our communities and the restoration of our normal way of life,” Perry stated.
Could Lee be the answer to our prayers? Let’s just hope it doesn’t turn into a curse. Houstonians well remember just how damaging a slow-moving tropical storm can be; in June 2001 tropical storm Allison dumped 30 inches of rain on Houston, flooding large parts of the city.
There’s a host of great radar and satellite sites from which to monitor the development of Lee. Here’s a good infrared loop of the gulf. This is a fascinating model that predicts wind speeds, and currently shows the Lee system loitering off the coast for the next week and strengthening into a hurricane before coming ashore in Louisiana. The Weather Underground site has a bunch of good tropical storm models and radar feeds.
