The potential for severe storms remains in the forecast for the Lower Rio Grande Valley , with the National Weather Service station in Brownsville on Wednesday issuing a flash flood watch through early Friday for deep South Texas.
Barry Goldsmith, the station’s warning coordination meteorologist, said it’s important to be ready for flooding and frequent lightning strikes.
He explained that an upper level disturbance that has lingered over the southwestern United States since mid-May and caused flooding and hail along and north of I-10 had finally begun to “eject” to the east. The disturbance will take a “parting swipe” at Texas , settling over the central and southern part of the state through early next week, Goldsmith said.
Heavy rains that pounded portions of the Lower Valley early Wednesday were thanks to surges of energy from the disturbance meeting sweltering summer air, with storms lining up across the Coastal Bend and South Texas brush country and joining another batch of storms moving off the Sierra Madre west of Zapata County , he said.
Goldsmith noted that weather models in recent days had been “remarkably consistent” in showing storms organizing into other systems as they move west to east across ranch lands and the mid- to Upper Valley .
According to the NWS, there’s a 70 percent chance of heavy rain today, a 60 percent chance of thunderstorms tonight and an 80 percent chance of thunderstorms Friday.
Brownsville NWS issued a flash flood watch through early Friday for coastal and inland Cameron County as well as several counties to the north and west. Widespread rainfall of two to four inches was possible, with isolated areas potentially receiving six to eight inches.
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