Tropical system bearing down on southeast Texas

AccuWeather

Storm chaser Mike Scantlin reported live from Texas on the evening of June 18, ahead of what could become the first tropical storm of 2024.

Transcript

00:00Mike, it's good to see you again pretty breezy out there. I see a lot of clouds over your head.

00:05So what have you been observing today and have you seen many changes over the past say six or seven hours?

00:12Yeah right now we've got easterlies here just screaming here on the north side of that

00:16circulation here quite a ways to the south. We're still getting some pretty strong easterlies here.

00:20I measured about a 25 mile an hour gust and sustained at about 18 to 20. So you know it's

00:26not calm but you know it's still a beautiful sunny day. We've got this guy over here he's fishing.

00:31We've got people walking their dogs. We've got kids on the playground. It's it's just business

00:34as usual here in Port Lavaca but that's all going to change here as those storms move in overnight

00:39into tomorrow with a lot of heavy rain. Mike, we are mostly concerned about rainfall and flooding

00:45tied to this system. It's still disheveled right now. It's not really fully organized

00:50but what is your game plan? I know that there's going to be some heavy rain near the coast but

00:53also some heavy rain inland as well. Sure well I mean right now my plan is to just watch and see

01:00where those bands line up. You know overnight active weather future radar showing one of the

01:04stronger bands kind of turning into a training line of storms just a conveyor belt coming in

01:09that looks to set up pretty close to the Corpus Christi area and then move inland there. So

01:14I plan on starting near Corpus Christi tomorrow morning and then and then just kind of positioning

01:19north and south based on where the more the storms are training over the same area. That's really

01:24where we're going to see the issues with this is where we have the training storms and the localized

01:29areas where we're going to get those. Everyone's going to see a lot of rain. Those localized areas

01:33are where we're going to see the biggest rainfall totals here where we have just a conveyor belt of

01:38moisture coming in off the Gulf. The end. Mike, as time progresses we're going to see a flood risk

01:44even into the areas around and west of I-35. Storm surge we could see one to three foot storm surge

01:50there and we're forecasting a slightly greater storm surge to the north up near Galveston Bay

01:54but it'll be far removed from the center of the storm. And Mike I know you've traveled many many

01:59miles in your career as a storm chaser. What was your most memorable tropical system to capture up front?

02:06Oh I think it's a tie between doing Hurricane Ian in Punta Gorda with with Bill Waddell. That was

02:13an incredible experience and then Hurricane Harvey as well in Rockport with with Reed Chamber and

02:19Andy, our great camera guy Andy. And those were both really incredible events. You know Ian was

02:26more during the daytime so it was more enjoyable from an extreme wind experience but Hurricane

02:30Harvey was scary just because the hotel was falling apart and we didn't know if we were really

02:35going to get out of there for the second half of the hurricane. But you know we made it out and

02:38we got some pretty good stories out of it as well. Mike we appreciate all of your reporting and

02:44what you do on the ground is helpful because it kind of fills in the gaps and shows people

02:47what's actually happening out there. And there will be some dangers tied to this one though it's

02:51not going to be a Harvey thankfully there along the Texas coast. Thanks again Mike Scantlin there

02:55for that update in Port Lavaca, Texas. Thanks for having me. Good stuff Mike. And as we take a quick

03:01look at the downpours and overall again radar pretty limited for now aside from some downpours

03:06up into the Houston metro and just to the south areas like Rockport which was actually the point

03:11of landfall for Harvey as it came in and kind of just stalled over the Houston metro. In this case

03:17we can see these downpours that we're going to see extra moisture just driving the rain into Texas

03:22and even southern Louisiana. You're going to see some heavy rain at times too but the biggest

03:25impacts are going to be in far northern New Mexico farther northern Mexico I should say

03:30where the east-facing slopes of the mountains will squeeze out tremendous amounts of moisture.

03:34We're going to have some flooding in Texas too. Corpus Christi at points west down into Eagle

03:39Pass we're forecasting eight to twelve inches if you count the greens one so one to two inches for

03:44New Orleans two to four inches up near Beaumont and Port Arthur probably four plus southwest

03:50to Houston and then eight to twelve inches of rain likely in places like say Corpus Christi

03:56and down into parts of the Rio Grande west of Harlingen and West Laco McAllen Texas eight to

04:01twelve inches. Here's that storm surge so this is the ocean water shoving inland because of the wind

04:07sweeping it and a small tiny contribution from lower pressure but most of this is just from the

04:12wind driving it inland. We're looking at a hot spot actually way north of the point of landfall

04:16up into Galveston Bay where three four five maybe near a six foot storm surge there if we're on the

04:21high end of the scale so this storm will have high impacts that's the third shade here if you're not

04:26prepared and if you're out to driving you're going to be in a dangerous situation here in south Texas

04:31and this storm will have an accurate the real impact scale rating of one in both U.S. and Mexico

04:36in south Texas and Mexico where the storm will outpunch its rate weight class here as a tropical

04:41storm bringing some excessive rainfall.

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