Small but blustery Edouard made landfall Tuesday afternoon at 2:20 PM CT as a 60 mph tropical storm near the mouth of the Sabine River along the border of Texas and Louisiana.
At the time of landfall, its tropical storm winds (winds exceeding 39 mph) extended out only about 25 miles from its center but the punchy storm brought wind gusts of 60 to 70 mph, with gusts as high as 90 mph, to the coastal town of Port Arthur south of Beaumont.
Significant flash flooding continues through early Thursday
As we’ve discussed in the newsletter this week, the primary threat from Edouard is flash flooding, which was ongoing for parts of southeastern and east-central Texas Wednesday morning.
Radar estimates show rain totals approaching almost 20 inches along a narrow corridor just north of Kountze in central Hardin and south-central Tyler counties about 30 miles northwest of Beaumont, where a flash flood emergency was in effect early Wednesday.
Additionally, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center upgraded its flash flood threat level mid-Wednesday morning to high (threat level 4 of 4) for the Big Thicket to Piney Woods region of southeastern Texas. High risk days are very rare – occurring on only about 4% of days – but account for about 1 in 3 flood-related deaths and 80% of flood-related damages.
The highest rainfall total officially observed so far is around 18 inches near Little Pine Island Bayou, Texas, within this high risk zone. Widespread totals of 4 to 8 inches have been recorded elsewhere across southeastern Texas and east of the Houston-Galveston proper, which largely avoided any heavy rain and flood issues.
The flood threat will inch farther inland, stretching into communities of east-central Texas, southeast of Dallas-Fort Worth, through Thursday morning. The National Weather Service is forecasting another 4 to 8 inches possible on Wednesday into early Thursday along Edouard’s path.
Despite weakening to a tropical depression, Edouard maintained a coherent circulation on radar while over 100 miles inland over Texas Wednesday morning. What’s left of Edouard’s remnant spin should wash out quickly by late Thursday into early Friday over north Texas and southern Oklahoma.
Nothing brewing behind Edouard
As we discussed in Tuesday’s newsletter, the Atlantic basin will stay eerily quiet into what is traditionally the peak week of the hurricane season.
The only dark-horse contender shown by forecast models is mid-to-late next week from low pressure along a washed out frontal boundary over the northern Gulf, a familiar story this season. For now, the odds of anything happening here are very low but we’ll watch the trends in the week ahead.
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