Dolly made history as only the second July hurricane to strike south of Matagorda Bay. The last one was a storm from 1909 on nearly the same date. We benefitted from Dolly's rain in a big way today. Look at how the showers streamed in from the Gulf of Mexico in nearly equally-spaced bands:

A close up look at Harris County shows heavy rain on the east and west sides along with downtown:

This is the nature of tropical bands - swatches of heavy rain in brief periods of time. At least nearly everyone in Southeast Texas received badly-needed rain without any of the damaging effects of a land falling storm.

As the storm rolled toward South Padre Island, I captured this image and I was struck by the lop-sided appearance of the storm:

This even puzzled our Hurricane Expert, Dr. Neil Frank. Usually, the "dirty side" of the storm is to the right of the center. If the storm is a clock, then the dirty side is normally from 12 to 4. However, Dolly's dirty side was from 9 to 6. In fact, as the storm came inland, that's where the strongest winds were. You've probably heard some of the residents there say how they weren't expecting such a strong storm since it was only supposed to be a Category 1 at landfall. They were also thinking that since the winds should've been strongest on the Gulf of Mexico, they wouldn't be so rough on the land side of the storm. It's just another example why we need to look at each storm separately. No two are exactly alike.

I have a theory on the lop-sided storm, by the way. If a storm is moving south to north, the dirty side usually is to the right. Think of Opal, moving into the Florida Panhandle from the Gulf. But a storm moving from right to left could be different. The counterclockwise flow of the storm could bring wind energy from the right to the left. It's only a theory.

1 Comments

Anonymous said:

Once again KHOU has over-sensationalized something for ratings...! We can use the rain, and we can use some better Meteorologists in this town!!! Watch out 13 here I come for reliable forecasting.

August 5, 2008 9:48 AM

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