Impact of Major Hurricanes to Hit Texas Coastal Bend Regions

Audrey Garza

Nana Liu

September 27, 2017

Impact of Major Hurricanes to Hit Texas Coastal Bend Regions

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to compare and contrast past hurricanes such as, Carla, Beulah, and Celia, to the recent hurricane Harvey that struck the Texas Coast, in order to establish meteorological backgrounds associated with these storms. The different categories of comparison include: hurricane strengths and tracks, historical rainfall totals, and local impacts. Much of the local impacts for the past storms are summarized from preliminary and final reports published by the Army Corps of Engineers, correspondence and reports from the Russell Mozeney Collection and other sources located in the Special Collections and Archives Department of the Mary and Jeff Bell Library at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, the Daily Weather Map online site, the Monthly Weather Review, the Weather Underground website, and the online National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Library. The preliminary results of this study demonstrate that hurricanes Carla in 1961, Beulah in 1967, and Celia in 1970 have many similarities to the recent hurricane Harvey in 2017. Both, hurricane Carla and Harvey are similar in size and strength. Each of these storms was massive in size and reached category four in strength. All of these storms possessed a similar hurricane track. Rainfall totals between hurricanes Beulah and Harvey were unprecedented at the time each occurred. Thus far, the historical data reveals that both hurricane Harvey and Beulah devastated different areas of Texas with historic floods. In conclusion, the synoptic scale patterns exhibit that what occurred with hurricane Harvey was unique, but not unseen in the past. Hurricanes Carla, Beulah, and Celia all displayed certain characteristics and atmospheric conditions that mirrored hurricane Harvey.