Fire Weather Concerns in the Intermountain West into the Plains

Anomalously warm, dry and breezy conditions will bring elevated to critical fire weather conditions across portions of the Intermountain West into the Plains though early this week. Another elevated risk is possible across the central Appalachians. A rapid warm-up is in the forecast beginning Monday across the central and eastern U.S.. Read More >

Map of rainfall across the Rio Grande Valley and Deep South Texas, February 18-19, 2010 (click to enlarge)

More Soaking Rains in the Lower RGV
Late Winter Disturbance Brings More February Wetness

Overview
Another fairly robust upper level disturbance tracked along the continued active subtropical jet stream during mid February and induced a feed of tropical moisture which lifted over a relatively cool surface air mass, spreading steady light to moderate rains across the Lower Rio Grande Valley beginning around midday on the 18th and continuing through midday on the 19th. Highest event rainfall was confined to the immediate coast, where bands of showers early on the 19th added to the prior totals from the steadier rains on the 18th. More than 2 inches fell right along the coast just north of the Rio Grande, shading back to an inch or less across the Middle RGV northward and westward to the Upper Valley and Rio Grande Plains, where lack of considerable low level moisture kept rain totals down.

The rains added to significant totals earlier in February to push monthly rainfall departures to 3 to 4 inches above the 30–year average in much of eastern Cameron County. For the winter (December 2009 to February 2010), rainfall departures of 6 to 8 inches above the 30–year average were common across the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

Preliminary rainfall, February 18th to 19th, 2010
Location	County	Rainfall
South Padre Island	Cameron	2.54
Laguna Atascosa NWR	Cameron	2.07
Bayview/Cameron Co. Arpt	Cameron	1.90
Los Fresnos	Cameron	1.85
Rancho Viejo	Cameron	1.75
San Benito 5.0 SSE	Cameron	1.74
Brownsville 4.1 E	Cameron	1.55
Harlingen/Cooperative	Cameron	1.47
Rio Hondo 9.4 NE	Cameron	1.39
Brownsville SPI Intl Arpt	Cameron	1.28
San Manuel/Linn Lower RGV NWR	Hidalgo	1.12
Sarita	Kenedy	1.11
4 ESE Linn (Climate Ref. Network)	Hidalgo	1.07
Alamo 1.5 NNE	Hidalgo	1.07
Weslaco Cooperative	Hidalgo	1.04
Mercedes	Hidalgo	1.01
McCook	Hidalgo	0.99
La Joya	Hidalgo	0.98
Pharr 5.1 N	Hidalgo	0.93
Armstrong	Kenedy	0.87
La Joya 11.1 N	Hidalgo	0.85
Raymondville	Willacy	0.77
Mission 1.9 ENE	Hidalgo	0.75
McAllen/Miller Arpt	Hidalgo	0.73
Edinburg Int'l Arpt	Hidalgo	0.73
Rio Grande City	Starr	0.72
Port Mansfield	Willacy	0.69
Falcon Dam	Zapata	0.65
Brooks Co. Arpt (Falfurrias)	Brooks	0.51
Jim Hogg Co. Arpt (Hebbronville)	Jim Hogg	0.16

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Fire Weather Concerns in the Intermountain West into the Plains

More soaking rains for the Lower Rio Grande Valley February 18 to 19, 2010