Alberto “landfall”; Invest AL92 a threat?

TLDR: Alberto is making landfall this morning, dumping a lot of rain across northern Mexico and most of East Texas. The thing off of the SEUS now has an invest ID (AL92) but isn’t much of a threat. Here’s the details …

Tropical Storm Alberto is technically a tropical storm but it’s a very broad, somewhat disorganized system. For the latest official word check out the Key Messages regarding Tropical Storm Alberto (en Español: Mensajes Claves) from NHC. Rain should decrease across Texas today, but northern Mexico looks to get a lot more. The onshore winds are causing some shallow coastal flooding as well, but it seems nothing major from the wind/storm surge typically associated with tropical systems. All in all, this looks to be on the order of a $500 million dollar event.

What about the yellow blob of doom that has been threatening the US Southeast the last few days? Short version is it is still threat condition “Meh.” While it might briefly become a tropical depression, and is developing some convection near what might be trying to become a tropical low, conditions aren’t great in the medium or long term, and NHC gives it a 30% chance of becoming a tropical ccoastyclone. But keep in mind that means anything from a depression on up, and in this case, even becoming a tropical storm is probably a stretch. One big reason is that there is dry are already being pulled in to the area, as can be seen in this GOES east image looking at the water content of the middle levels of the atmosphere …

The brown areas are dryer air. Also notice how the wetter areas of Alberto (are over Mexico now rather than Texas. Still, AL92 might bring some rain to the coastal GA/SC this weekend. My Armenian Melons could sure use some,

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Admin note: recovering from some outpatient surgery and lots of family stuff this week, so posts a bit less snarky and wordy, and probably even more typos than usual 😛 …