Tropical Storm Harold made landfall in southern Texas on Tuesday morning, bringing heavy rain, flash flooding, and even some tornado warnings across the impacted area.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Prediction Center monitored Tropical Storm Harold as it tracked into the Corpus Christi area with estimated sustained wind speeds of 50 mph on August 22. The storm reached Padre Island around 10 a.m.
John Metz with the National Weather Service reported heavy rain — 3 to 5 inches — in the Corpus Christi area and wind gusts between 50 and 70 mph. In addition, some tornado warnings and flash flood warnings were issued shortly after the storm arrived.
American Electric Power (AEP) reported that thousands of customers in the San Angelo and Laredo Districts were left without power due to the storm. A majority of the outages were in Corpus Christi.
“Tuesday afternoon, crews began restoring service to customers who lost power earlier in the day due to heavy rains and winds associated with the storm’s landfall,” AEP said on its website. “By 7 p.m., the number of customers without power had been reduced to approximately 11,000, as compared to the approximately 22,000 peak number of outages at 2 p.m.”
A local television news station reported that some residents were still without power Wednesday morning.
By 4 p.m. Tuesday, all storm warnings along the Texas coast had been discontinued, CNN reported. The storm has since moved out of southern Texas and into northern Mexico, weakening into what is now a tropical depression.
Metz said that it is common for the southern coastal area to experience storms of this magnitude or stronger, having already weathered Hurricane Nicholas in 2021 and Hurricane Hanna in 2020. Aside from downed tree branches and power outages, the storm did not appear to cause any major damage.
It did, however, bring some welcome rain to southern Texas.
“We needed the very heavy rainfall because we’ve been very parched under an excruciating drought,” said Metz.
The storm also brought with it some relief from the 100-degree temperatures the area has been experiencing for the past three weeks. The hottest it got in Corpus Christi on Tuesday was only 87 degrees, and the high for Wednesday is 92. Temperatures in the area are forecast to remain below 100 over the next seven days.
In Central and North Texas, temperatures remained unaffected by the storm in the southern part of the state. In the DFW area, triple-digit temperatures are expected to continue into next week.
Tropical Storm Harold was the first of the 2023 Atlantic Hurricane season to make landfall in the U.S. Tropical Storm Franklin is currently gathering momentum in the Caribbean.