Flood — San Patricio, Texas

2010-07-02 to 2010-07-03 · near St Paul, San Patricio, Texas

Event narrative

Between 5 and 8 inches of rain from Hurricane Alex left several flooded County and Farm to Market roadways across San Patricio county for a few days after the event. An elderly couple's vehicle stalled in flood waters near CR 696 & CR 1441. The couple abandoned their vehicle, and swept into floodwaters and drowned.

Wider weather episode

Hurricane Alex made its final landfall at 9pm, Wednesday June 30th, along the northern Mexican coast around 110 miles south of Brownsville as a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph. Alex was the first Hurricane in June for the Altantic Basin since 1995, and the strongest in the month of June since Hurricane Alma in 1966. Alex was a very large hurricane with tropical storm force winds extending over 200 miles from the center. Although Alex passed over 200 miles south of Corpus Christi, tropical storm force wind gusts were measured as far north as Port O'Connor, George West, and Cotulla. The strongest winds were observed on the barrier island from Port Aransas to Baffin Bay where peak wind gusts exceeded 60 mph.

Overall, the impacts to the Middle Texas coast were minimal. Storm tides peaked just below 4 feet mean sea level at tide stations along the coast producing flooding along area beaches. About a half dozen tornadoes occurred within the outer rain bands from Alex. These tornadoes caused mostly minor tree damage. Radar indicated the possibility of several more tornadoes, however NWS survey teams were unable to locate any additional damage. Heavy rainfall and flooding proved to be the biggest impact. Rainfall totals of 3 to 6 inches with isolated amounts near 10 inches were observed across South Texas. This resulted in flooding of many roads and farm fields from Alice to Sinton.

Less than $10 thousand in damages occurred from the 6 tornadoes. However, nearly $5.5 million in damages resulted from flooding associated with the heavy rainfall, of which $5.25 million was observed in Webb County from flooding along the Rio Grande. Nearly $1 million in crop damage, mostly to grain and sorghum was observed. In addition, flooding resulted in two fatalities.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (28.1678, -97.5613)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 254495. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.