CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Tropical Storm Harold made landfall on Padre Island in northern Kenedy County at 9:50 AM on Aug. 22, 2023. The path of Harold brought some much need rain to the Coastal Bend and the watershed for both Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon.
By Wednesday morning the Choke Canyon Watershed in blue saw more rainfall with totals up to 2 inches in spots. Most of the heavy rain fell in the Lake Corpus Christi Watershed. We will see how the watershed responds to the rainfall in the coming days. Currently the combined like level is at 36.3%. A lot of the rainfall will likely be absorbed by the ground due to drought conditions.
Before Harold the Coastal Bend was seeing drought conditions worsen every week. The last drought monitor released on Aug. 17 had the Coastal Bend in moderate to extreme drought. Unfortunately the heavy rain missed Refugio and Aransas County where the extreme drought is. Overall drought conditions will improve dramatically. Unfortunately tomorrow's drought monitor won't reflect all of this rain because the data cut off is Tuesday at 8 AM.
Rainfall totals in the Coastal Bend were over 4 inches in spots.
Officially Corpus Christi picked up 4.74 inches of rain yesterday and set the rainfall record for the day barely. The previous record was in 1999 when Major Hurricane Bret hit Kleberg County in similar spot.
Before Harold, Corpus Christi was on track to be in the top 10 driest summers on record. Now it's in the top 50% for wettest summers on record. Rainfall for the year is barely back above normal by 0.31".
