A Texas Hurricane This Week? (Update: Probably)

We're fast approaching the 38th anniversary of my hurricane experience with Celia in Corpus Christi, TX, and it looks like my friends in Rockport and the surrounding areas could be in for it again:

The center of Tropical Storm Dolly appears to have jogged northward over night in the process of reforming, and that means two things: 1) the threat to Southern Texas has gone up since yesterday, and 2) as the storm should now spend less time over the Yucatan Peninsula it will weaken less during this brief encounter with land. …

At this point, areas from Victoria to northern Mexico appear at the highest risk, but all of Texas should keep an eye on a system that could reach the Texas coast late Wednesday or early Thursday.

And how strong would such a system be?

Unfortunately, we cannot rule out rapid intensification of Dolly, which presently has 50 mph winds, once the storm reaches the Gulf of Mexico. This is not only because of the warm water, but also because of favorable atmospheric conditions. …

The official forecast still calls for an 85 mph hurricane, but my guess is that this will be raised during the next update [at 11:00 AM EDT] to reflect Dolly’s northward jog.

Texas may well be struck by a goodly sized hurricane later this week. Houston, though an unlikely target, is not yet out of the woods.

As far as I can remember they've not had a major hurricane hit South Texas since Celia, and there has been tremendous development down there since then (I see new housing and stuff going up in the Rockport-Fulton area every January when I'm down there for the Rockport Gospel Music Festival). The projected path shown above could be problematic for my friends down there since Rockport would likely find itself on the east side of the center of circulation where the strongest winds and storm surge would be. A big storm surge could really be devastating to that area.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.

UPDATE: I barely had finished typing this post when the National Weather Service issued a Hurricane Watch for South Texas, from Brownsville to Port O'Connor. One forecaster was predicting a 10% chance of rapid strengthening right before landfall, which is exactly what happened to us in Hurricane Celia in 1970. The storm made an unexpected move overnight and rapidly intensified right before it smacked into our motel in Corpus Christi with sustained winds 40+ mph stronger than forecast.

UPDATE 2: The storm appears headed for the Texas/Mexico border and will probably make landfall as a Cat 1 hurricane.