As Tropical Storm Beta continues to approach the Texas Gulf Coast to make landfall its wind speed has luckily fallen to just 50 mph. While wind speed was not a big issue since the storm was not going to turn into a hurricane a reduction in speed nonetheless is a positive. The storm has also sped up some which are even better for Texas and Louisiana. Since Beta is just a Tropical Storm and not a Hurricane the biggest concern is the vast amount of rain it could dump. With the storm now speeding up some it means it will linger over the area less than it was previously expected. 

Within the last 24 hours, the area I live in has moved out of the 24 inches of rain band to the 8-14 inches of rainband. While it is still a ton of water I would much rather have only a foot of rain instead of 2 feet! The roads today have already begun flooding and part of one of the piers in Galveston was ripped off but that is not all that surprising with any named storm headed our way. 

Yesterday at my house we got about an inch and a half of rain for people who live outside the US that is 3.81 centimeters of rain. Today we have already gotten about an inch according to the weather stations but this was just the green "light" rain bands and the orange and red bands are incoming in the next 30 minutes. It looks to me reading the data and living off experience we will probably get close to 4 inches today on the low side I would not expect anything more than 5-6. Again for outside the US people this would be 10.16 centimeters with up to 12.7-15.24 centimeters. Not terrible rain but we will have rain for at least one more day, tomorrow, and possibly through Thursday which could than start causing some issues.  

If it were not for the rain the temperature would be perfect! Today we have a high of 77 and tomorrow it is 79! I am not ashamed to say I busted out my sweat pants and a sweatshirt for work today as most people I have seen are wearing pants and jackets/sweaters. It is rather refreshing to have a nice break from the heat. Saturday before the outer bands of the storm arrived I was able to play a round of golf from 11-3 pm and it was really nice out with the high at 87 but it was pretty windy and driving out of the tee box was an issue. 

I live in a pretty protected area with the river still not to flood stages yet so even with 6 or 7 inches of rain the next few days we will be safe from floodwaters. East Texas will be 100% out of any drought indicators after this, there were a few random spots that were in the abnormally dry zone, which is great. Hopefully, the storm does not affect the Texas/Lousiana border where Hurricane Laura hit and left its wake of destruction. Luckily Houston is more prepared for storms like this than ever before. It also helps that most kids are learning remotely so most schools are not even "closed" and the kids are all getting to keep some normalcy with school.