Beryl made landfall near Matagorda Texas this morning as a Category One hurricane.
On radar you can see the broad swirl of heavy rain and thunderstorms, but as can be seen from the IR Satellite loop it didn’t organize or intensify as much as some of the indications were it might.
The latest summary from NHC is on their Key Messages regarding Hurricane Beryl (en Español: Mensajes Claves). Here is the impact estimate using my TAOS/TC impact model:
It’s unlikely many if any sites on land saw sustained hurricane force winds, so damage and impacts should be scattered and other than vulnerable structures relatively light. Any hurricane must be taken seriously, but at least for Texas Beryl should be at the low end of the scale. Still, given the density of the development and population (8.5 Million people may experience tropical storm conditions), it is likely economic impacts will be in the neighborhood of $1 Billion dollars.
As one example, any time a storm makes landfall on the Gulf coast there is concern over the Oil and Gas infrastructure. There are 20 refineries of various types in the impact swath, with the Phillips 66 Sweeny complex being in the immediate damage swath. “Most” in this case isn’t terribly bad – the forecast is for perhaps 3% damage, which should mean impacts are minimal unless something broke that shouldn’t have. Another concern is this region, more than most, are sites containing toxic materials. There are 186 sites at risk of damage from this storm. Most of the damage should be light, but there is always concern as flash flooding can rapidly spread any leakages.
Although we will have to wait for daylight and the storm to pass to get a detailed assessment, it would appear this could be a lot worse. Of course, that should not take away from the fact that some will be unlucky – even relatively weak landfalls such as this have the potential to cause tragedy, but the overall impacts in the US should not be bad.
Please do not let that take attention away from the devastation that the Eastern Caribbean suffered, with areas of Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines being nearly wiped out.
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Good analysis. I’m in The Woodlands on the north side of the Houston MSA, about 30 miles east of the projected track of the storm. So far, it looks as if this will be mainly a rain event — the storm is moving relatively quickly, which will help hold down totals in most areas. I’m expecting 4-6 inches of rain today, which will cause some localized flooding but is no big deal for this area. Also, the high temperature here today will probably not get to 80, which is a nice break from the hot summer days here. The cooling of the atmosphere for a few days is a fringe benefit of these storms.