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What Did Hermine Really Mean? - Weather Forecast

published: September 20th 2010
by: Weather Wise By Brian Bledsoe

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I have been chatting about the influence the tropics can have on a forecast, for the past couple articles.  Being able to forecast where a tropical storm will develop and where it will go is impossible, until it actually forms.  A prime example of that is Hermine.  She got her birth in the Bay of Campeche and rapidly intensified as it neared the Texas Coast.  Here is an image of Hermine at landfall, south of Brownsville:

Everyone knows what happened after landfall, in that Hermine tracked through central Texas, produced extensive flooding and even a few tornadoes.  The most notable touched down in Dallas…

Rainfall totals from Hermine were impressive.  The trend that was inevitably becoming the start of drought for the impacted areas, was dramatically reversed in a very short time.  The rainfall totals map below clearly demonstrates what a slow moving storm can do:

Rainfall amounts between 8 and 15 inches hit the I-35 Corridor.  Clearly this is too much rain in a short period of time, but Texas needed a drink.  Kansas, Oklahoma, and western Arkansas also saw flooding from Hermine, but not quite as bad as central Texas.

The torrential downpours may have lead folks to believe that there is no impending drought and that I was full of…well…something.  Nothing could be further from the truth though.  If you weren’t in the path of Hermine, you didn’t see nearly as much rain and some folks got left out completely.  Those are the folks that haven’t had their mind tainted by what Hermine brought.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it is great that the rain fell.  However, I think it is leading to some false hope in that the drought won’t occur.  Before Hermine, it was getting quite dry for some areas.  In fact, August was the 20th driest on record for the state of Texas, 15th driest in Arkansas, and pretty dry for Oklahoma and Missouri:
 

August was hot too.  You don’t need to me to tell you that.  Check out just how hot:

Overall, it was the 4th warmest Summer on record for the US.  August did its’ part with near record warmth for the southeast third of the US…WOW!  So while Hermine brought relief by way of heavy rain and temporarily cooler weather, it was by no means a pattern changer. 

La Nina is strong and going to get stronger.  Latest sea surface temperature anomalies are pushing 2 to 3 degrees below normal in the Pacific, which simply means La Nina is here to stay for a while.
 

Overall, I still think La Nina will be the driving force in our weather for the next several months.  Latest computer models still show La Nina continuing and remaining fairly strong:

Based on this I see no change to our October through December forecast. 

It is possible that another brush with a tropical storm could briefly interrupt the onset of drought.  However, as we get deeper into the Fall, a lot of the tropical action will likely remain in the Caribbean or way out into the Atlantic.
 
As always feel free to drop me a line if you have questions:  bbledsoe@southernlivestock.com
 
We'll chat again in October.