Storm chaser Mike Scantlin reported live from Texas on the evening of June 18, ahead of what could become the first tropical storm of 2024.
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00:00Mike, it's good to see you again pretty breezy out there. I see a lot of clouds over your head.
00:05So what have you been observing today and have you seen many changes over the past say six or seven hours?
00:12Yeah right now we've got easterlies here just screaming here on the north side of that
00:16circulation here quite a ways to the south. We're still getting some pretty strong easterlies here.
00:20I measured about a 25 mile an hour gust and sustained at about 18 to 20. So you know it's
00:26not calm but you know it's still a beautiful sunny day. We've got this guy over here he's fishing.
00:31We've got people walking their dogs. We've got kids on the playground. It's it's just business
00:34as usual here in Port Lavaca but that's all going to change here as those storms move in overnight
00:39into tomorrow with a lot of heavy rain. Mike, we are mostly concerned about rainfall and flooding
00:45tied to this system. It's still disheveled right now. It's not really fully organized
00:50but what is your game plan? I know that there's going to be some heavy rain near the coast but
00:53also some heavy rain inland as well. Sure well I mean right now my plan is to just watch and see
01:00where those bands line up. You know overnight active weather future radar showing one of the
01:04stronger bands kind of turning into a training line of storms just a conveyor belt coming in
01:09that looks to set up pretty close to the Corpus Christi area and then move inland there. So
01:14I plan on starting near Corpus Christi tomorrow morning and then and then just kind of positioning
01:19north and south based on where the more the storms are training over the same area. That's really
01:24where we're going to see the issues with this is where we have the training storms and the localized
01:29areas where we're going to get those. Everyone's going to see a lot of rain. Those localized areas
01:33are where we're going to see the biggest rainfall totals here where we have just a conveyor belt of
01:38moisture coming in off the Gulf. The end. Mike, as time progresses we're going to see a flood risk
01:44even into the areas around and west of I-35. Storm surge we could see one to three foot storm surge
01:50there and we're forecasting a slightly greater storm surge to the north up near Galveston Bay
01:54but it'll be far removed from the center of the storm. And Mike I know you've traveled many many
01:59miles in your career as a storm chaser. What was your most memorable tropical system to capture up front?
02:06Oh I think it's a tie between doing Hurricane Ian in Punta Gorda with with Bill Waddell. That was
02:13an incredible experience and then Hurricane Harvey as well in Rockport with with Reed Chamber and
02:19Andy, our great camera guy Andy. And those were both really incredible events. You know Ian was
02:26more during the daytime so it was more enjoyable from an extreme wind experience but Hurricane
02:30Harvey was scary just because the hotel was falling apart and we didn't know if we were really
02:35going to get out of there for the second half of the hurricane. But you know we made it out and
02:38we got some pretty good stories out of it as well. Mike we appreciate all of your reporting and
02:44what you do on the ground is helpful because it kind of fills in the gaps and shows people
02:47what's actually happening out there. And there will be some dangers tied to this one though it's
02:51not going to be a Harvey thankfully there along the Texas coast. Thanks again Mike Scantlin there
02:55for that update in Port Lavaca, Texas. Thanks for having me. Good stuff Mike. And as we take a quick
03:01look at the downpours and overall again radar pretty limited for now aside from some downpours
03:06up into the Houston metro and just to the south areas like Rockport which was actually the point
03:11of landfall for Harvey as it came in and kind of just stalled over the Houston metro. In this case
03:17we can see these downpours that we're going to see extra moisture just driving the rain into Texas
03:22and even southern Louisiana. You're going to see some heavy rain at times too but the biggest
03:25impacts are going to be in far northern New Mexico farther northern Mexico I should say
03:30where the east-facing slopes of the mountains will squeeze out tremendous amounts of moisture.
03:34We're going to have some flooding in Texas too. Corpus Christi at points west down into Eagle
03:39Pass we're forecasting eight to twelve inches if you count the greens one so one to two inches for
03:44New Orleans two to four inches up near Beaumont and Port Arthur probably four plus southwest
03:50to Houston and then eight to twelve inches of rain likely in places like say Corpus Christi
03:56and down into parts of the Rio Grande west of Harlingen and West Laco McAllen Texas eight to
04:01twelve inches. Here's that storm surge so this is the ocean water shoving inland because of the wind
04:07sweeping it and a small tiny contribution from lower pressure but most of this is just from the
04:12wind driving it inland. We're looking at a hot spot actually way north of the point of landfall
04:16up into Galveston Bay where three four five maybe near a six foot storm surge there if we're on the
04:21high end of the scale so this storm will have high impacts that's the third shade here if you're not
04:26prepared and if you're out to driving you're going to be in a dangerous situation here in south Texas
04:31and this storm will have an accurate the real impact scale rating of one in both U.S. and Mexico
04:36in south Texas and Mexico where the storm will outpunch its rate weight class here as a tropical
04:41storm bringing some excessive rainfall.