Hurricane Harvey Hammers Texas

Hurricane Harvey, the eighth named storm of the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season, made landfall in Rockport, TX late Friday night. It was the strongest storm to hit the United States in twelve years.

Coming ashore with winds measured up to 130mph, Harvey was classified as a Category-4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. These powerful winds along with storm surge flooding and torrential rain caused catastrophic property damage across the Texas Coastal Bend region. It also downed trees and left hundreds of thousands of people without power. To date, according to local officials, only two storm-related deaths have been reported.

Moving inland, toward Houston, Harvey weakened to a Tropical Storm on Saturday afternoon. However, despite this downgrade in wind speed, its rain bands are still drawing moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and unleashing massive amounts of precipitation. Wedged between two areas of high pressure, the storm is essentially stalled over the region. Therefore, even more flooding rain is expected over the next several days.

Harvey was the first major hurricane – category 3 or higher – to make landfall in the Lone Star State since Hurricane Carla in September 1961.

Satellite imagery from NOAA shows Hurricane Harvey along the Texas Coast. Credit: NOAA