Erin floods Texas and Oklahoma, Dean not likely to do the same

Just when we thought this would be another extremely quiet hurricane season for the Atlantic basin, it has finally gotten active. As Hurricane Dean formed in the central Atlantic Ocean, a tropical disturbance organized into a tropical depression one week ago in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico. It later became a minimal tropical storm as it approached the Texas coastline.

As it turned out, Tropical Storm Erin made landfall just north of Corpus Christi, Texas during the overnight hours last Thursday (August 16th) and produced flooding rains to rain-soaked southern and western Texas and later in Oklahoma over the following three days. The last of the remnants of Erin developed into severe thunderstorms and even tornadoes to eastern Nebraska last night.

Prior to Erin's arrival, Corpus Christi already received a record rainfall total of over 18 inches of rain last month and nearly 33 inches for the entire year, so area residents hoped Erin wouldn't cause any serious flooding this time around. But Corpus Christi lucked out with just .18 of an inch of rain from the tropical storm as the bulk of the precipitation ended up being north of the area.

Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport had daily record rainfall for last Thursday and ended up with a storm total of 2.92 inches. However, other parts of the city such its southwest side received as much as 9 inches and flooded many streets and major highways. San Antonio didn't fare much better as Erin caused some serious flooding in parts of that city as well. While San Antonio International Airport received only .06 of an inch of rain last Thursday, the San Antonio River had overflown its banks from South San Antonio toward the Gulf Coast from 8 to 18 feet above flood stage.

Erin marched northwestward into the western half of Texas bringing more heavy rain to areas that didn't need it. The remnants of this storm then moved into Oklahoma over the weekend and flooded out central and eastern parts of the state with over 9 inches of rain. For Saturday, Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City received a record 3.82 inches of rain for that date while locales well to the east such as Kingfisher, Oklahoma had significant flooding thanks to the Cimarron River overflowing its banks.

Neither of these two states will have to be seriously concerned with Hurricane Dean at this point as the forecast track takes that storm well south of the region into central Mexico. But for right now, Texans and Oklahomans have a massive cleanup job ahead of them.