Weather Impact update: Tomorrow could feel like 115° as Tropical Storm Bertha looms in the Gulf

[00:00:00]Good Tuesday evening everybody. David Paul with you here. K hou 111 weather center. There are so many moving parts to the forecast. Um we got a lot to run down. We've got a heat advisory in effect right now. Tomorrow we have one of these extreme heat warnings. We don't often see those. That's as bad as it gets for the heat. We expect to go to 100 with heat index values 110 to 115.

[00:00:26]If that sounds high, it is. I'll show you the modeling on that. So, if you got to work outside in the heat, tomorrow's an okay day to to not overdo it.

[00:00:34]Everybody will be impacted by that heat tomorrow. Thus, the weather impact alert. There is also a chance for a thunderstorm tomorrow. It's at least a 10% chance. That's new. And that will be the very outer edge impact of Bertha who will be directly impacting Louisiana tomorrow. But the way outer circulation will, we think, produce an isolated thunderstorm tomorrow. And in the heat like that, if you get a thunderstorm going, it can be quite strong. So, tomorrow is an interesting day. Then rain chances up to 30% Thursday and Friday as whether it's depression Bertha, tropical storm Bertha, remnant circulation, Bertha impacts Texas and Houston. And while we may take a direct hit from the low-level circulation, it looks like the real action will be pushed way to the south of Houston. Kind of like what happened with Arthur where we took a direct hit from the circulation, but it was a breezy, partly cloudy day because the upper level winds had blown all the rain over to New Orleans. So, it's a very complicated forecast. So, I'll walk you through it here as best we can. Weather impact alert tomorrow, 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. It's the extreme heat. Take it easy. That's a thermometer. That's a water bottle. I could replace that with an air conditioner.

[00:01:49]Here's what it looks like on the map.

[00:01:51]Heat index 110 to 1 tomorrow afternoon.

[00:01:54]Well, between 11:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., that's when heat indexes will be at their hottest. That impacts everybody.

[00:02:00]Whether you're healthy or you have health problems, you'll be impacted by it. Uh 3:30 in the afternoon, modeling on the heat index has ElCampo at 113, Houston 115, Liberty 119, Anowak 117.

[00:02:14]So, you get the idea. We don't get those feels like temperatures even in Houston very often. So tomorrow, if that verifies, is going to be an unusually hot and humid day.

[00:02:25]High temp today did go to 98. We forecast 99. So we hit 98. That was at 259 this afternoon at Bush. 95 is normal. Records 101 set back in the year 2000.

[00:02:37]Got the planes taxiing out to take off.

[00:02:40]Bush airport still sitting on 98 here at 6:30. 97 at Hobby. Sugarland's 95.

[00:02:45]Conro's 96. You know, these highs aren't too terribly out of the ordinary. We ought to be about 95 96 this time of the year. So 97 98, not really that much above and heat index values are actually below the heat advisory criteria that we are under right now.

[00:03:03]Excuse me. Feels like 100 at Bush, feels like 103 hobby, 102, 101. Sugarland Conroe uh heat advisory suggested we'd go to 107 108 today. We haven't seen heat index values that high today.

[00:03:17]tomorrow where they're expected to be higher. These are current feels like temperatures. And actually, as I say that, look at Galveston. So, you're at 108. It's because the humidity is higher down in Galveston being right on the beach uh with the higher humidity levels there. Hobby feels like 103. Wharton feels like 101. Angleton feels like 103.

[00:03:36]Conro feels like 101 right now. I see some folks in the water out there. Take a look at future track by noon 30 tomorrow. This is lunchtime tomorrow. Just hot.

[00:03:50]And then that's interesting. Going into 4:00 tomorrow, models are suggesting that we're going to get a couple of handfuls of little thunder showers popping up. So, if we get a thunderher going, it could tap into that heat and produce an isolated a small but very mighty downpour with lightning and thunder. Not much of us get wet, but those that do, you may see some lightning and thunder or some isolated neighborhoods tomorrow. So, thus the 10% chance for a thunderstorm tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow evening. That's the way outer influence of Bertha. Here are the numbers. 94 by noon, 100 in the afternoon with that 10% chance for a thunderstorm tomorrow afternoon.

[00:04:35]Okay, so we've had Arthur and Bertha and it appears that both are going to impact Houston almost directly if not directly.

[00:04:43]Arthur impacted us directly. The track went right over Houston. It was on that Saturday I believe it made landfall uh back in June and you just it was a breezy beautiful day because there was so much wind shear it had displaced all the storms from the center. That looks likely to be the same outcome with Bertha. Very unusual. we get almost directly impacted by the circulation while the storms are blown to the south into South Texas.

[00:05:10]Let's walk through it. Here's Bertha. 60 mph tropical storm gust to 70 moving northwest at 6. Pressure at 995. That's as of 4:00 advisory. So, you can see how everything's being blown off to the west. That's the upper level wind. Look at these thunderh showers. See how they're beginning to get close? That's the chance for a thunderstorm that I think we'll have here tomorrow afternoon. Those could be strong.

[00:05:33]the surface circulation is on the edge of the deeper thunderstorm convection. So if we had this type of thunderstorm activity right over the center, I would be concerned that this is developing stronger into a stronger tropical storm or hurricane.

[00:05:50]But that's not happening because it's pulling in dry air off the mainland.

[00:05:53]That's why the north side is so rainfree and the windshare cutting across it is literally just pushing the storms to the west southwest. That's why everything is moving in that direction.

[00:06:08]So the upper level winds are ripping this apart. Now it's been able to hold together enough to become a 60 mph tropical storm.

[00:06:15]It depends on how much influence it gets from the land mass of the mouth of the Mississippi, southeast Louisiana when it hits there tomorrow. you know, will it take a chunk out of the energy? Will it will it go all the way over land or will it stay offshore? That will determine how strong it is when it gets over to the Texas coast.

[00:06:34]And again, the uh the windshare, you get a strong storm, it needs to be vertically stacked. What's happening right now is that windshar is cutting across it and interrupting the circulation and tilting everything over.

[00:06:44]And that can keep a storm weak or actually rip an existing storm apart.

[00:06:48]Here are the the the latest guidance from the hurricane center.

[00:06:53]50 mph tropical storm impacting New Orleans tomorrow afternoon. Now, as you saw, it looks like most of the rain will be south. So, they may just get a breezy day with a few scattered showers in New Orleans while the heavy rain is offshore and near the coast. And it just remains to be seen how much the land mass influences and disrupts the circulation or doesn't to see how strong it is when it gets here. Hurricane Center is forecasting a 35 mph depression Bertha when it gets in here on Thursday night and Friday, but at that point the shear is still pushing all the rain to the southwest.

[00:07:31]So it may be that Corpus Brownsville actually will have much greater impacts than we will here being right in the middle of the cone. It's uh it's, you know, it's very complicated uh and a very unique situation. We had one with Arthur and they have it with Bertha. So let's walk through it. This is tomorrow afternoon, you know, and there's the center and and the latest high-res modeling has it just missing the mouth of the Mississippi, the real center of it. But you can see how the rain and thunder displaced to the south, just not much on the northern half. So New Orleans gets a breezy day with a couple of scattered showers.

[00:08:06]And as we mentioned, we get a chance for one or two or three or four isolated showers or thunderhers. We begin to get that tomorrow afternoon. 10% chance going into Thursday morning. Modeling now has pretty good circulation. That may still be a depression, maybe a weak tropical storm. Thursday morning sitting right here south of uh southwest Louisiana. That would give a north breeze to Galveston 15 to 25.

[00:08:33]That would increase the surf as well.

[00:08:35]Surf and seas would increase a couple of feet. That's Thursday morning, but not much in the way of rain. Thursday midday, a few scattered showers. Winds shift to the east, 15 to 25, probably gusting to 30, 35 on the coast.

[00:08:54]That's Thursday noon. Then Thursday 6:30 in the evening, wind shift around to the south and still just a few scattered showers.

[00:09:05]And that's the thing, the center, you know, wherever the center is going [snorts] to be, traditionally, if that's the center coming in, that would put us on the dirty side, and you would just say at first glance, well, we're going to get a lot of rain out of it. But we're not because that shear cutting across it from north to south is just shoving all the rain to the south.

[00:09:24]Modeling has been very consistent picking up on that. And that's what you'd expect to happen with that type of shear. So from Corpus to Brownsville, they get much more probably wind and rain than we do up here in Houston on that track and that upper level air pattern. Just fascinating. Tropics are complicated. It's just it's just amazing. So we're going to try to give you the best feel for what's going to happen in the Thursday Friday time frame. Most of this is Thursday. North breeze that then eventually shifts around to the south uh by Thursday night. 15 to 25, maybe a gust of 30 and a 20 to 30% chance for a scattered shower with most of the rain corpus to Brownsville. Just amazing.

[00:10:07]Wednesday again going to 100 with the heat advisory in effect tomorrow. The extended forecast weather impact alert tomorrow for the heat and watch out for that 10% chance for a thunderstorm.

[00:10:18]30% chance for scattered showers Thursday and Friday as what there is of Bertha grazes by us and otherwise we stay very hot. Highs stay in the upper 90s going through the weekend as we go into next week. Uh living on the Gulf Coast is just an absolute it is a challenge. Uh and it certainly keeps you on your toes as a forecaster. So, uh, keep getting updates daily, couple times a day, in case anything decides to change. If this thing stays offshore, you know, maybe gets a little stronger than it is, we do our complete tropical update right here at 900 p. p.m.

[00:10:55]tonight. We'll go through all that again with the latest modeling and of course, KHLU 11 News at 10 o'clock will have the update. We'll see you then. Have a goody.