Extreme Rainfall in Houston Metro

[Sam Sagnella]

An amazing rainfall event occurred earlier this morning over a large portion of the Houston Metro area. Harris County has been under a Flash Flood Warning since 511am, and numerous high-water rescues have been performed. According to ABC13.com, more than 10 inches of rain have fallen so far, with nearly 6 inches falling in only 1hr15min! I am not familiar with the area, but the Washburn Tunnel, a major thoroughfare connecting Galena Park and Pasedena that goes under the Houston Ship Channel, has flooded and is impassible. According to the Harris County Website, "Flooding is practically impossible. Pumps located under the road surface drain the water back into the ship channel. As to this date, the Tunnel has never been flooded."

Wow.

http://kamala.cod.edu/offs/KHGX/0606191012.wgus54.html
KTRK-TV in Houston
NBC in Houston

 

[StephenLevine]

Here in Clear Lake, about 28 miles S. of Downtown, I savored a total of 7 hours these past two days of lightning pyrotechniques, and beautiful skies.

Watched from 4:30 am through 8:30 am yesterday, the first two hours being spectacular forked lightning spewing across the sky -rare in these humid zones. Sunrise consisted of peach and pink sky; lightning cutting across it, a beautiful pearly distant thunderhead, a rainbow, and towers building in the East with sunstreaks coming out -- all at the same time.

Then watched with a neighbor this morning from 2am through 5 am. The storms mostly hung to our north, and caused alot of C-C lightning. During the last hour or so a few good close C-G's got the adrenaline up.

Watched a tree come crashing down in a nearby park later this morning, from standing water there due to the combined rain and city watering.

Felt a variety of feelings later this morning including awe and gratitude to experience this magnificance, deep concern for people in this region impacted by floods, and scientific fascination with the structures and dynamics of the clouds during this unusual event.

We moved from significant drought to the other polarity these past two days, though not nearly the rainfall as up just to the North of us.