Hurricane Harvey revisited 5 years later
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – In late August 2017, Hurricane Harvey made one of the most devastating impacts that the United States has ever seen from any tropical cyclone.
The stats this hurricane unfortunately generated are still mind-blowing to look at.
Hurricane Harvey was the eighth named storm of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. This storm originated from a tropical wave that popped up over the eastern Atlantic Ocean on Aug. 12.
By Aug. 17, the system officially became a tropical depression with winds of 35 mph; however, it was quickly upgraded to a tropical storm, and this led to the storm being officially named Harvey. After making landfalls in Barbados and St. Vincent, Harvey would traverse unfavorable conditions in the Caribbean. This caused the system to weaken back to a tropical wave.
The remnants of Harvey would eventually reconsolidate itself into a tropical storm after passing through the Yucatan Peninsula on Aug. 23. A favorable environment for strengthening enabled Harvey to quickly achieve Hurricane status on Aug. 24. It did not take long for this storm to become dangerous as major hurricane status, a Category 3, was declared at 2 p.m. Aug. 25 EDT. Harvey would only further intensify despite it being very close to the Texas coastline, and it became a Category 4 by the evening of Aug. 25. It was becoming clear that Harvey was going to pose life-threatening conditions with extreme winds, torrential rain, and storm surge values from 8-10 feet.
Harvey made landfall as a Category 4 around 11 p.m. EDT Aug. 25 on San Jose Island, just east of Rockport, Texas. It wound up making a second landfall directly in Rockport three hours later. Forecasts from the National Hurricane Center depicted Harvey was set to move very slow once it got into Texas. This is where everything would begin to go upside down. Harvey dramatically weakened as it slowed to a crawl after moving inland. For the next two days, the system stalled out and dumped enormous amounts of rain. Another bit of detail that can’t be left out is that Harvey would spawn 22 tornadoes in southeastern Texas.
Harvey eventually moved back into the Gulf of Mexico on Aug. 28 and made its final landfall in Cameron, Louisiana, on Aug. 30. The system would then weaken to a tropical depression by the early morning hours of Aug. 31. During the afternoon hours of Aug. 31, additional tornadic activity in Mississippi and Alabama included a large and long-tracked EF2 that tracked through Reform and Palmetto, Alabama. Harvey would ultimately transition to post-tropical cyclone status on Sept. 1 and was absorbed by another system not long afterward.
When it was all said and done, Harvey left behind astronomical flooding and widespread damage. Southeastern Texas especially was hit the hardest as a portion of the region had high-standing water, which caused recovery and relief efforts to become highly challenging. To put things into perspective, Harvey set or tied several records. This would tie Katrina as the costliest U.S. hurricane on record at $125 billion. It would also become the wettest tropical cyclone on record with Nederland, Texas, for instance, receiving an unforeseen 60.58 inches of rain. Houston in general saw many locations within the city record at least 30 inches of rainfall, and an estimated 25%-30% of Harris County, Texas, overall was submerged. August 2017 would become Houston’s wettest month in recorded history, which doubled more than the old record of 19.21 inches set in June 2001.
Up to 107 people lost their lives from Hurricane Harvey, and 68 of those deaths were directly from the hurricane. More than 30,000 people were displaced due to the disastrous floods along with over 17,000 rescues having to take place. Despite the historic flooding, residents in southeast Texas showed courage in the face of extreme adversity and worked hard to recover well. The name “Harvey” was officially retired in April 2018, and its replacement is “Harold” for the 2023 Atlantic hurricane season.
