Harvey strengthening in the Gulf, 2 other areas to watch

USA weather Center's forecast cone for Harvey

This is my first blog on here so let me start by introducing myself, my name is Owen Anastas, I'm 14 years old, currently in my freshman year at Boston Latin School, and have a passion for the weather. Growing up I always watched the weather channel 24/7. one of my most memorable weather moments is the record breaking winter of 2014-2015, in which Boston broke its all time snow record. I also remember chasing Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Irene with my dad and nana.

Alright, enough about me, lets move on to Harvey. Harvey is currently a tropical depression but is expected to become a Tropical storm later tonight or tomorrow morning. Harvey is expected to become a Hurricane before landfall but the exact strength is uncertain. Models range anywhere from a Tropical Storm to a Category 4 major hurricane. Though, Most models are in agreement that a hurricane will be making landfall in Texas in 3-4 days.

To the right is the GFS model for Harvey, one of many models showing a hurricane landfalling in South Texas.

Although the winds will be very strong major flooding will be a bigger story. Shown below is the GEFS probability for >10" of rain.

People in Texas should be preparing for life-threatening, catastrophic flooding from Hurricane- to-be Harvey.

While the ECMWF shows Harvey landfalling once, then moving back over the gulf and strengthening into a Cat 2/3 and making a second landfall in Louisiana, many models have this moving SW after landfall which would be a better situation for Louisiana but just as bad for Texas.

These are the 00z spaghetti plots for Harvey, many show the GFS solution(moving SW after landfall)

Some areas in Texas could be dealing with 20-30" + of rain as shown in my rain graphic below

I have also created a threat graphic for Harvey which is shown below

As for the other two areas to watch, one is 92L and the other is future 93L, Matthew will have updates on this tomorrow! As for me, I will likely have frequent updates on Harvey and more blog posts this week.