Hurricane Celia was one of the worst hurricanes to ever hit the Texas Coast. It made landfall on this date in 1970 just north of Corpus Christi with measured sustained winds of 130 mph and wind gusts estimated to 180 mph! The storm had intensified rapidly in the hours before landfall.

The tropical wave that would eventually become Celia passed off the African coast on July 23. It reached the Lesser Antilles on July 28. Passing across the Caribbean, a closed circulation formed near the Cayman Islands on the 30th. Celia crossed the western tip of Cuba as a tropical storm, but began to intensify rapidly as it crossed through the Yucatan Channel.

The pressure fell from 990 millibars to 965 millibars in just eight hours. This intensification was reminiscent of Camille.

But the storm weakened, and by the third with the center less than 250 miles off the Texas coast, the pressure had risen back to 988 millibars. Then the storm began to deepen rapidly again and throughout the day the pressure fell 43 millibars to 945 millibars, including 26 millibars in just nine hours.

Despite the fact that the hurricane passed to the north of Corpus Christi, the city sustained severe damage as microburst winds of 160 mph raked major residential areas for an hour. The downtown area was heavily damaged. Nearly 9,000 homes were destroyed.

The storm surge at Port Aransas Beach was 9.2 feet above normal. Winds gusted to 89 mph as far inland as Del Rio, 150 miles from the coast. The damage in Texas was a record up until that time of $444.9 million. Sixteen lives were lost in Celia and 466 people were injured.

Celia is significant because of the extreme damage on the left side of the storm from wind streaks that caused tornado-like damage and the periods of rapid intensification.
It was a well behaved storm, with excellent track forecasts, however.

(--By Bill Murray)

The Tuesdayafternoon map discussion video is on the server at:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

I just love JB's way with words!! Showers as scarce as kudzu in Canada! And that certainly gets the point across for us as the radar remains relatively free of showers especially along and north of a line from Columbus, MS, to Birmingham to Anniston. Scattered showers were observed south of that line, but very few were getting wet.

The drying trend seems to be in vogue through mid-week, but we certainly can't remove showers completely from the forecast. That is quite evident by a few lone showers west and northwest of Nashville. Precipitable water values on the Birmingham upper air sounding this morning were below 2 inches.

Moisture returns a little toward the end of the week with a weak front reaching to just north of Nashville, so our rain chances go up a smidge over the weekend.

Tropics have become very quiet. There was that one area of disturbed weather southwest of Bermuda where a tropical depression may be forming. Outside of that, there were not many clouds across the southwest Atlantic, Gulf, and Carribbean.

Latest GFS model does not advertise much change in our weather pattern for the next couple of weeks. Of course, beyond 5 or 6 days a lot can change - and probably will - so we'll keep watch on what trends do appear.

Lots of clouds on the satellite imagery across the Gulf coast, so I hope James and his family have lots of sunscreen! We don't need a sunburned James Spann to return to work next week.

My dog has as much trouble with the hot weather as Ms. Molly does. Tune in tomorrow for a picture of Dakota giving me the evil eye for taking her picture.

Stay cool.

-Brian-

Well, not quite that scarce. But this is our quietest afternoon in a long time for the number of showers and storms. At 1:45 pm, they are very widely spaced across Central Alabama with few, if any over the north third of the state.

By far, the more numerous ones were near the coast.

Would you believe that Mobile has now received over 49 inches of rain in only the last five months? They received an additional 1.10 yesterday and getting more today.

And, how about Pensacola! Already over 61 inches of rain this year!

The Tuesday morning map discussion video is on the server at:

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Hope you had a chance to read James post below on his trip to the Gulf Coast. I can echo his sentiments about the condition of the Alabama coast. Ivan's affects are still visible, but there has been much progress in bringing the area back from that devastating storm.

Closer to home, radar not as active this morning with the radar operating in clear air mode. Clear air mode works to detect very small particles in the air and give meteorologists information on wind.

Tropics have also become less active. Still an area of disturbed weather 550 miles southwest of Bermuda with no signs of development. Another area of showers in the Central Atlantic was moving northward and only a threat to shipping.

The small features will play a major role in our weather for the next several days - perhaps as much as a week to ten days. The weak trof at 500 millibars oriented almost east to west will continue to weaken and settle southward. We should see fewer showers today and Wednesday but the moisture begins returning toward the end of the week. A front approaches the area on Friday but should not make it any closer than Nashville and will wash out before getting into northern Alabama.

The GFS does have some promise of a front that could make it into and through Alabama in about 9 or 10 days - around August 10th. But that is quite a distance into the future, so I won't be surprised to see that solution change before we get to that date. It is fairly common for us to see a nice cold front with dryer air and cooler temperatures in mid to late August - nature's way of reminding us to stick out a little more heat and humidity by giving as a fall preview.

Thanks for checking with us on the Blog. Be sure to check back often as updated information is posted frequently. Have a great day.

-Brian-