Tropical troublemaker to bring flooding rains to eastern Mexico

After an extremely quiet first half of the Atlantic hurricane season, the tropics have sprung to life during the last week.

The first hurricane of the season, Humberto, formed to the west of the Cape Verde islands. Also, Gabrielle became a tropical storm for the second time, taking heavy rain and strong winds across Bermuda.

The beginnings of the next tropical storm are currently swirling around in the bay of Campeche, just off the coast of Mexico.

Tropical Depression Ten is an organised cluster of thunderstorms that is feeding off the warm water in the Gulf of Mexico – allowing it to become more active and intensify.

The latest forecast from the National Hurricane Center in Miami suggests that it will become Tropical Storm Ingrid by the end of Friday.

Severe flood risk for eastern Mexico

It is then expected to drift north westwards into eastern parts of Mexico, giving a combination of torrential rain, strong winds and flooding rains.

While it’s not going to be a powerful storm, the danger will be due to the fact it will be very slow moving. This means that similar locations will see intense rainfall for days.

The weather computer models are showing that there could be 10-15 inches of rain over eastern Mexico during the next five days, with mountainous areas seeing up to 25 inches – well over half a metre.

Such a huge amount of rainfall will inevitably cause severe flooding, with a significant chance of landslides as the ground becomes saturated with water.

Welcome rain for drought-stricken Texas

After moving across eastern Mexico, it looks like the remnants of the storm will drift northwards into southern parts of Texas next week.

Southern Texas is in desperate need of rainfall as this part of the state is in the midst of an exceptional drought, with the rest of the state suffering from drought conditions of varying degrees.

NOAA’s latest rainfall forecast for the next seven days shows that there could be as much as 10 inches of rain in the far south of the state, with 1-3 inches possible towards central Texas.

However, it is worth emphasising that there’s still some uncertainty as to the exact path of the storm’s remnants, so the detail could change in the coming days.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on the situation as it develops and posting updates on Twitter – @liamdutton