40 inches of rain in Texas? It’s happened before
In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, parts of Texas could get pummeled by 40 inches of rain by the time the storm is over.
Paul Lewis, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service’s Houston/Galveston office, said Houston was expected to see more than 25 inches of rain through Wednesday.
Some isolated areas affected by the storm — a region roughly the size of Iowa — could see 40 inches of rain by Wednesday, he said. That’s if the storm doesn’t move much, as is expected.
If that happens, he said, “the emphasis is really the potential for the catastrophic and life-threatening flooding.”
Incredibly, 40 inches of rain in a short time isn’t new for Texas.
The city of Alvin, which is southeast of Houston, holds the record for the greatest one-day rainfall in the United States. In 1979, Tropical Storm Claudette dropped 43 inches of rain there in 24 hours.
Compare that with the 23 inches that California gets in an average year. Even Seattle, known as “Rain City,” will see slightly less rain in an average year than parts of Texas will get during these five days.
Katie Landry-Guyton, senior service hydrologist in the National Weather Service’s Houston/Galveston office, said that if rain falls too hard and fast, it won’t soak into the ground quickly enough. Heavy rains for several days in the same area are a recipe for dangerous flooding.
Claudette was considered a “weak” tropical storm but essentially stalled over Southeast Texas from July 25 to 26. According to a National Weather Service report, the rain caused unprecedented flooding in the 1979 storm.
“Fifteen thousand homes and hundreds of businesses were flooded out,” the report said. “The rice crop was beaten into the soil by the heavy rainfall.”
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