re: Harvey ***Catastrophic Flooding Event***

Still the image from skysummit at stormcast forums.

There's deverging winds aloft creating an area for the moisture to lift up into.

The shear would appear to be displacing all that mid-level to upper level energy north of the circulation. This kind of stretched profile is discribed as a deformation zone by the pros at the WPC. As long as it stays where it is, the rain will stay focused right there. It's somewhat similar looking to the upper level divergange over Houston Saturday night, and the rainfall rates are quickly baring that out.

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Almost like a canal in the upper atmosphere so to speak

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Not a bad way of thinking about it at all.

And yeah, Louisiana had been very fortunate.

10:00 PM CDT Tue Aug 29
Location: 29.0°N 93.6°W
Moving: NE at 6 mph
Min pressure: 994 mb
Max sustained: 50 mph

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Thanks rds for the link. Here is LCH radar for landfall

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All those fears of it moving due east should be squashed with that radar loop. The center is clearly moving NNE, if not due north.

question from a now out of stater: is Baton Rouge and New Orleans seeing an influx of houstonians evacuating? Kind of a reverse Katrina movement or is it still too soon?

Wow. Motiva in Port Arthur is shutting down. Wouldn't be surprised if ExxonMobil Beaumont is right behind it.

Motiva is the largest US refinery I think.

Gas prices about to go up for real now

I can't imagine too many people evacuated to Louisiana since the storm has been forecast to slowly move in that direction. They probably went north. It was flooding in Beaumont and points East of Houston so going that way to get to Louisiana wouldn't have made sense.

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Wouldn't be surprised if ExxonMobil Beaumont is right behind it.

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I think XOM Beaumont was running at reduced rates. Wouldn't be surprised to see them shut down at this point. Better to do a controlled shutdown than have it crash.

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