Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Dolly Makes Landfall

Dolly is currently making landfall on South Padre Island, TX to the northeast of Brownsville. Since the pressure bottomed out at 964 mb a few hours ago, it has risen to 967 mb. The temperature difference between the eye and outside of the eye has dropped to 4 degrees instead of 7 degrees observed earlier with the deepening phase. That's not surprising as Dolly is probably beginning to feel the increased frictional efects and should be on a weakening trend from this point forward. Maximum sustained winds are near 100 mph and no further increases in strength are likely since Dolly will soon be entirely over land.


After landfall, the main focus will quickly turn to the flood potential. Already, radar has estimated over 4-10" of rain has fallen to the east of Brownsville in Cameron County. Hourly rainfall rates has recently been as high as 5" per hour in some part of Cameron County. If Dolly slows down or stalls, look for some rainfall amounts to exceed 15"!

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