In brief: Watch for areas of flash flooding over the next few hours as Bertha’s downpours press through the Houston region. Stage 1 or low-end 2 type flooding is expected in the impacted areas.
A flash flood warning is posted for portions of southwest Harris and Fort Bend County until 9 PM, as some bands of torrential downpours have pushed through the area. They are very slowly drifting north and west, but have dumped as much as 4 inches of rain over Missouri City in the last couple hours.
I would expect the flood advisory to eventually be expanded north and west as heavy downpours impact other parts of Harris and Fort Bend Counties, and another flash flood warning can’t be ruled out either. Watch for areas of street flooding over the next few hours, especially west of I-45. We should see storms and downpours peak over the next 2 to 3 hours and settle back down after 9 to 10 PM or so. Again, the core of the heaviest rain may slowly lift north and west, which should hopefully keep flooding from going beyond Stage 1 or perhaps low-end 2 in those areas.
Bertha itself has made landfall east of Houston and will continue off to the west or west southwest through the night and tomorrow.
A horrible thunderstorm with a ton of lightning here in Jersey Village, just now starting to let up some. There was a lightning strike literally across the street from me. There doesn’t appear to be any damage. I can’t believe that there is no yellow severe thunderstorm box around it.
I feel like this is hitting harder than expected due to the rush hour timing. Granted there’s no wind but this was not good to spend 90 minutes driving home in, given the continuous lightning and deteriorating roads. In hindsight I wish I had left work early.
That’s crazy. Lightning is no joke, especially when it is that close to you. It wiil get your attention everytime. Years ago a tree in my backyard was struck and I could feel the shockwave in my chest for like a minute. There was bark and large chunks of that tree scattered all over the place with a few pieces sticking in the ground like daggers. This tree was literally over 50 yards from the house and one of the chunks made it just inches to our backporch. It was insane.
There has been a ton of lightning with these storms today. I am not surprised given how hot and wet the atmosphere was. There was an over abundance of water vapor to turn into ice pellets in the upper storm clouds to rub together creating a next level build up of static electricity.
