Hurricane may bring devastating flooding

Hurricane Harvey will turn into a “beast” of a storm, meteorologists say, one that’s forecast to bring catastrophic, lifethreatening flooding to much of Texas.

Even after the storm makes landfall late Friday or early Saturday near Corpus Christi as a likely Category 3 hurricane — potentially the country’s strongest hurricane in 12 years — Harvey will stall and spin for the next three to five days, dumping up to 2 feet of rain across the region.

“The forecast for Harvey continues to grow more dire,” warned the National Weather Service in Corpus Christi.

Though a 4- to 6-foot storm surge and howling, 100+ mph winds will be a deadly threat, the storm’s biggest concern may eventually turn out to be flooding from days of torrential rain.

Harvey “may be nothing short of a flooding disaster,” for Texas, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski, who said that some communities could be underwater for days.

The storm will cause much worse damage from flooding and wind than would normally occur from a fast-moving storm of similar size, he said.

Once it moves ashore, even if it weakens to a tropical storm, Harvey will essentially be “trapped” between two sprawling areas of high pressure, the National Weather Service said. One high-pressure area will be over the Desert Southwest and the other central Gulf of Mexico, Weather Channel meteorologist Jon Erdman said.

In all, the storm could dump at least 15 trillion gallons of water on Texas, WeatherBell meteorologist Ryan Maue said.