Bad Day In The Lower Rio Grande Valley

Dolly's here!. A lot of this tropical moisture will end up in the Southwestern monsoon, in NM and AZ, by the weekend:

Hurricane Dolly made landfall about 20 to 25 miles north of the town of South Padre Island or 35 miles northeast of Brownsville as a category two hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph at around 1 p.m. CDT.

Since landfall, as expected, because of land friction sustained winds from Dolly have dropped back to 85 mph; remaining a category 1 hurricane. The center of circulation is now located 50 miles north of Brownsville, Texas and moving to the northwest at 8 mph with an eventual turn to the west expected.

Even before the eye's official landfall, Dolly's eyewall punished interior and coastal South Texas beginning at the mid morning hours and the lashing continues into this evening.

Nasty squalls of tropical downpours, tropical storm-force sustained winds, and hurricane-force gusts (sometimes sustained) from Hurricane Dolly are spinning across far South Texas interior. Even with the eye making landfall, conditions will continue to be dangerous and miserable through tonight and into tomorrow morning.

It should be emphasized that this will be a long duration event for South Texas due to Dolly's sluggish nature and impacts from Dolly, especially flooding rainfall, will last well into Thursday.

Locations along the immediate coast such as Port Mansfield, Laguna Vista, Arroyo City, South Padre Island, and Port Isabel have all taken a pounding today.

Other cities such as Brownsville, Harlingen, and Raymondville ahave also felt the wrath of Dolly.

All power is reported out on S. Padre Island while power lines and power poles are down in Brownsville, Harlingen, and Port Isabel.

...Even with the extensive damage being reported, the most life-threatening impact from Dolly is becoming the prolific flooding rainfall.

Rain amounts are forecast to be in the 6 to 15 inch range in locations south of Corpus Christi through Brownsville and into northern Mexico.