In what world is 20" of rain considered a non-event?

claym711 said:

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Right, so as of now, it looks like somewhat of a non-event for Houston. Heavy rain. It it comes inland and camps over houston, there will be flooding. That's far from a certainty and hardly evacuation worthy.

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You haven't been around Houston much if you are thinking that 20" or so of rain in a 2-4 day span is a "non-event".

I wish I was as badass as you are.

it's a category error

you see 20" in 12 hours for Allison or whatever the 8 hour total was for Memorial Day and then see the 5 day total for Harvey and say we got this

but a lot of that accumulation (thinking specifically of Memorial and Tax Day) was local and while the local systems got overwhelmed there was still somewhere for the water to go once the local bottleneck cleared. the entire county is going to get beaten down for days. the water that starts accumulating Sunday will just stay accumulated until Thursday. it's going to be torture.

people blowing this off are stupid.

cone said:

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it's a category error

you see 20" in 12 hours for Allison or whatever the 8 hour total was for Memorial Day and then see the 5 day total for Harvey and say we got this

but a lot of that accumulation (thinking specifically of Memorial and Tax Day) was local and while the local systems got overwhelmed there was still somewhere for the water to go once the local bottleneck cleared. the entire county is going to get beaten down for days. the water that starts accumulating Sunday will just stay accumulated until Thursday. it's going to be torture.

people blowing this off are stupid.

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15-20" over 5 days obviously much different than same amount in a few hours.

not if the entire region gets that amount. where do you think all that water is going to go?

claym711 said:

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cone said:

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it's a category error

you see 20" in 12 hours for Allison or whatever the 8 hour total was for Memorial Day and then see the 5 day total for Harvey and say we got this

but a lot of that accumulation (thinking specifically of Memorial and Tax Day) was local and while the local systems got overwhelmed there was still somewhere for the water to go once the local bottleneck cleared. the entire county is going to get beaten down for days. the water that starts accumulating Sunday will just stay accumulated until Thursday. it's going to be torture.

people blowing this off are stupid.

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15-20" over 5 days obviously much different than same amount in a few hours.

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It doesn't work like that with tropical weather systems. You can't just say "oh well the entire city is supposed to get 20" of rain over 5 days so we're good". Some areas may very well get 6" over 2 hours in pockets, maybe more. Each band will be different and dump massive amounts on different parts. Hurricanes don't drop a linear amount of rain over a finite period of time.

I have lived in Houston for over 40 years.

I can tell you that the we have NEVER had a Hurricane/Tropical storm with bands of rain be in our area for 3-4 days straight. We are talking about continuous rain for 3-4 days as the storm gets replenished with moisture from the coast.

This event will be unprecedented.

claym711 said:

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cone said:

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it's a category error

you see 20" in 12 hours for Allison or whatever the 8 hour total was for Memorial Day and then see the 5 day total for Harvey and say we got this

but a lot of that accumulation (thinking specifically of Memorial and Tax Day) was local and while the local systems got overwhelmed there was still somewhere for the water to go once the local bottleneck cleared. the entire county is going to get beaten down for days. the water that starts accumulating Sunday will just stay accumulated until Thursday. it's going to be torture.

people blowing this off are stupid.

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15-20" over 5 days obviously much different than same amount in a few hours.

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In a vacuum, yes it would be. But we don't live in a vacuum now do we.

Tell me, o' wise sage one that is super awesome badass - where is that water going to go? Especially when you are going to have artificially high tides as a result of the pull of the storm.

What about the massive amount of water that is going to come from upstream as well? You aren't talking about 15" or 20" in a single area and then it just runs downstream. You are talking about a significant rainfall over a huge portion of the lower Brazos watershed area (as well as the San Bernard watershed, the Colorado watershed, the San Jacinto watershed the Trinity watershed and the Sabine watershed - all are interconnected BTW), not to mention the watersheds of the multiple bayous, creeks and ditch runoffs.

The Memorial day flood was largely a result of runoff from upstream saturation. Guess what? We are going to have that same upstream saturation....with downstream saturation and, assuming the multiple reports of rainfall totals are somewhat accurate, a whole lot of additional added water over areas that are already at or beyond their saturation point and have no freeboard to adsorb the influent water. It's even more fun due to the fact that the area is still largely saturated from the abnormally wet summer we've had, so we essentially started off in a hole with this and don't have the ability to do anything to better the situation. Topography and weather simply aren't going to magically change overnight.

But hey, whatever.

you're an idiot

You know the shlt is real when the cone of uncertainty is a big circle.

Downpour has already started in montrose.

We have plenty of hurricane supplies except bleach. Which sucks because my balloon knot is accustomed to a certain standard of cleanliness.