June 1 isn't just the start of a new month. For residents on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, it marks the beginning of hurricane season. For the next six months, we'll pay particular attention to storms that form in the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico. Along the Texas coast, we've seen storms as ealry as June, especially if Gulf waters have been very warm in May. Our storm threat is two-fold because some of the most destructive storms we've experienced have seemingly spun up overnight in the Gulf and then moved inland in a day or two. Then, there are the storms we can see forming off the coast of Africa taking weeks to trek across the ocean before taking aim at the Carribbean or the U.S.

While our peak threat time is mid-August to mid-October, a storm could form any time in the next six months and we all need to be prepared. Your preparation will depend in great part on where you live. Coastal residents should have an evacuation plan as they will most likely need to leave in the event a major storm threatens the coast. This will be less necessary for people who live in, say, Jersey Village or the Woodlands.

Regarldess of where you live, you will need to consider the prospect of life after the storm. This means no electricity and scare supplies for a week or more, depending on the type of storm that hits. While your home may not suffer any structural damage, we're all prone to the flood threat. Even a land-falling hurricane may dump a lot of rainfall 50 to a hundred miles inland, especially if its moving slowly. Use this simple formula to estimate how much rain you could see. Take the speed of the storm and divide it into 100. So a storm moving 10 miles an hour could produce up to 10 inches of rain, while a storm moving 20 miles an hour would drop 5 inches.

All week, I'll blog about different aspects of the hurricane threat and don't forget to catch the 11 News special - Storm Warnings: Are You Prepared? It airs this Saturday, May 31st at 7 pm on KHOU - channel 11.

Leave a comment

Name:

Email:

URL:  

Remember personal info?

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.