With your host, Beryl, and featured musical guest, Katrina and the Waves – Space City Weather

In short: Just a few thoughts to share on Tropical Storm Beryl tonight, mostly some things I’ll be monitoring Sunday. If you’re looking for a concrete forecast on what impacts you can expect in Houston on Monday, please see our article from earlier today, which is holding up well tonight. We’ll have a full update tomorrow morning.

When will Beryl start to step up again?

As of Saturday night, Beryl remains a high-level tropical storm with winds of 60 mph. Its intensity has not changed much today, as expected, due to shear and dry air entrainment. However, as we have seen, Beryl is moving into a more favorable environment tonight and Sunday, so it is almost certain that it will strengthen again.

The key question at this point is when Beryl will start to pick up speed again. Indeed, once Beryl starts to increase its winds, it is likely that it will only continue to intensify over Texas. So I will be watching on Sunday to see how quickly Beryl’s winds start to increase and how quickly its central pressure (currently 993 mb) starts to drop.

The National Hurricane Center is predicting that Beryl will make landfall as a Category 1 hurricane, with winds of 85 mph (135 km/h). However, forecasters acknowledge that Beryl could rapidly intensify in the final hours before making landfall, as the system will be reaching an environment with significantly lower wind shear. Additionally, in the past, we have seen hurricanes intensify as they approach the Texas coast. Ultimately, the later Beryl begins to intensify, the better, as it could easily become stronger than a Category 1 hurricane.

A glimmer of hope: Beryl is moving forward at a good pace

The good news is that the storm is moving a bit faster than expected, so it will have less time to get going over the water. Some of our best models, including the European and GFS models, now have the storm hitting the Texas coast between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. PT Monday, several hours earlier than expected. This will give Beryl less time to intensify quickly.

The forward movement will also contribute to rainfall totals, both at landfall and after it moves ashore. Houstonians are rightly nervous about inland hurricane rainfall after Harvey, and this storm will make landfall only slightly further along the coast than where Harvey did. But Beryl is not Harvey. In fact, the forecast for Beryl’s forward movement after landfall is also faster. So while I expect to see very intense rainfall in the Houston metro area on Monday, it increasingly looks like the heavy rain will retreat northward by Monday night or early Tuesday.

We should have a better idea of ​​Beryl’s impacts in Houston by tomorrow, as it will be less than a day before landfall. Ultimately, everyone in the Houston area, but especially residents south and west of the city, should prepare for heavy rain and stronger winds on Monday. We’ll try to pinpoint the exact amount of rain and wind strength in tomorrow’s forecast. This will of course depend to some extent on whether Beryl intensifies quickly (or not) as discussed above.

Good night everybody.