Alex Continues to Strengthen

At 10:00 AM CDT, Hurricane Alex was located near 23.9N/95.4W, or about 185 miles southeast of Brownsville, Texas. Maximum sustained winds are near 80 mph. Alex has been moving to the northwest near 5 mph. Latest high resolution visible satellite imagery shows that Alex has been tracking north (or to the right) of the latest NHC track, likely in response to a continued upper level weakness to the north of the cyclone. Current thinking is that this weakness should start to be replaced by a ridge over the next few hours. As this occurs we should see the system resume more of a west-northwest track and head inland tomorrow morning in northern Mexico.

Alex has quite an impressive presentation on the latest satellite images which show a very well organized storm this morning with improved upper level outflow. The latest data from the Hurricane hunter aircraft indicate that the cyclone is currently going through an eye-wall replacement cycle and that the inner eye-wall has collapsed and the pressure has risen to 961mb, up 2mb from earlier this morning. The atmosphere around Alex is very moist to dry air entrainment does not look like it is going to be a limiting factor for increased strengthening today. Much like we saw with Ike, the storms central pressure is already that of a category 3 storm; however the storm is so large that the wind field will take some time to catch up with the pressures. I do not think that the storm will have enough time to fully complete its eye-wall replacement cycle and allow for the development of another strong inner eye-wall before landfall. Therefore it still looks like Alex will be a cat 2 hurricane with max sustained winds around 100-105mph as the storm reaches the coastline.

The main threats for southeast Texas will be the potential locally heavy rainfall due to a very tropical air mass in place over the region. Precip water values this morning are running in the 2.5-2.6'' range which is easily 2 standard deviations above normal for this time of year, meaning that any of the heavier convection will be capable of putting down 2-3'' per hour rainfall rates or greater. This will likely lead to some street flooding problems should we see training setup over the metro area. As of 11am, most of the activity has been confined to our coastal counties and offshore which is where the greatest risk of flooding should remain for the day. We will need to keep a close eye on the radar however to see if the heavier activity that has been over the gulf starts to move inland.

Winds across the region should remain out of the east-northeast 15-20mph through the day with some gusts to 30mph, especially in the heavier storms.

Alex Satellite Imagery

10am NHC Track