Hurricane Bret now Inland... Weakening and The Atlantic Four
06:20 AM EDT - 23 August 1999

Hurricane Bret has made landfall in relatively unpopulated Kenedy County, TX (Roughly 460 people in the entire county). This is south of Corpus Christi and north of Brownsville. Padre Island, where it made landfall, is a "National Seashore" in that area, which means probably no one lives out there, and nobody saw the storm surge and intense 140MPH sustained winds. In other words, the best case, for a storm of this strength, came to fruitition. Not to say that the residents in this county were not affected, but it could have been much much worse. Corpus dodged a pretty big bullet. If you live in the area, be very thankful.

Texas was lucky, and except for the insane amounts of rain they will be getting, got off with barely a scratch and a good scare in the more populated areas. If landfall were a mere 50-60 miles more north then it would have been a total disaster. I hope this does not mean the folks around Brownsville or Corpus will relax themselves next time a storm rolls around, because you "Survived a Cat 4" which landfell 70 miles south and was a very tight storm.

Bret is still currently a Hurricane, although a minimal one. It's still moving west over southern Texas and will weaken even more as time passes.

However... The tropics are not done...

There are no fewer than four systems worth watching in the Atlantic.
They are:
1. Tropical Wave Exiting Africa (Furthest East). This system just came off Africa and is looking very impressive. It may develop in the next few days, but we will have time to watch it if it does.

2. Tropical Storm Cindy (East) which was having trouble with shear but is managing to hold itself together. Most models turn it to the north before arriving at the islands and the US. Not a likely threat.

3. Tropical Wave east of Islands. This one is worth watching for the fact that it won't get north of the islands and won't miss the southern islands. This is hard to pick up on in the models, but I don't think it will gain too much strength before getting to the islands. I'm not positive it will develop either.

4. Of most immediate interest is the tropical wave just north of the islands. The Hurricane center is sending recon aircraft out today.
The Naval NOGAPS model has this system developing and getting dangerously close to Central Florida (but never makes landfall here, but rather closer to NC. I can hear them go... "Not Again!") Nevertheless, this is just one model of many that take it various places. The fact that it may get as close to Central Florida (and Florida in general) worries me. It would not take much of a nudge to place it in Florida. The general trend seems to move these more to the north, but this will be the big weather story over this week. Before jumping to too many conclusions, however, we should be prudent and watch it for the next few days. It is definately going to be our focus once Bret dissapates. Of interest to the northern Bahamas, NOGAPS take it across there, but the AVN model takes it north of the islands, and thusly further away from Florida as well. How strong the system may be, I am not sure. Other models suggest that it will turn north before hitting anywhere on the US, and therefore I think that would be the best solution. However with the chance being there it should be watched.

We noticed several technical problems with the page during the height of access. We're working to fix some of them for next storm. Mainly the coordinate history placing redundant entries, the storm panel at the top of this page being blank, and a few other anomalies.

Jim Williams' Audio Broadcast resumes at 9AM EST.

Road Closures By Condition Texas Department of Transportation

SurfCorpus.com Live Surfcam from the Bob Hall Pier in Corpus Christi, TX
Corpus Christi Caller Times
Brownsville, TX Public Library Live WebCam
Corpus Christi, TX National Weather Service Office
For more information on Cindy see the Current Storm Spotlight for Cindy.
For more information on BRET see the Current Storm Spotlight for Bret.
Some Forecast models: (NGM, AVN, MRF, ECMWF, ETA)
DoD weather models (NOGAPS, AVN, MRF)
Weather Channel Caribbean Sat Image
Intellicast Caribbean IR Loop
Intellicast Atlantic IR Loop

More Sat images: [N.A. visible] (visible -- Daytime Only) [N.A. infrared] (infrared), and [N.A. water vapor] (water vapor)--Nasa source.

- [mac]