Its days like this Im reminded that God has a sense of humor. All the elements were there for a major rain event in Houston: increasing atmospheric moisture, large scale lift and a surface boundary to focus rainfall development. I was confident heavy rain would push into Houston overnight and snarl the rush hour traffic. The National Weather Service thought so too; they issued a Flash Flood Watch for most of the area late Thursday evening. But as this radar loop shows, the storms weakened as they moved toward Houston and then redeveloped along the coast. There could still be a few thundershowers throughout the day, but this wasn’t the weather event we predicted. Why? I’m not sure. There are many pieces to the weather puzzle. Maybe the stronger development over Louisiana and south Texas pulled some moisture away from us. But why did it develop there and not here? Maybe the atmosphere didn’t have time to recharge from the strong thunderstorms that developed earlier Thursday afternoon. We’ll never know because the National Weather Service doesn’t launch a weather balloon here, so we never have a complete analysis of the atmosphere above southeast Texas. Maybe the urban heat island caused the storms to decay as they approached from the northwest. I’ve seen that happen again and again. When the weather doesn’t turn out as planned I do two things: I go back and re-forecast the event, looking for clues in the original data that we might have missed. I also evaluate the message communicated during our weather casts, looking for better ways to explain what might develop…and what might not. A busted forecast is both a humbling experience and a learning opportunity. Thanks for sticking with me.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 14:40:34 +0000
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