Active Weather
The heavy rain that dominated this region for most of the week has moved on, and what replaces it is smaller and sits further west.
The Weather Prediction Center carries a slight risk of excessive rainfall over portions of Arizona and New Mexico for Friday into Saturday, the second of four steps. The moisture behind it is tropical in origin, drawn north from Hurricane Marie in the eastern Pacific. Eastern Texas and the Gulf Coast keep a marginal risk, the lowest step, which describes localized street flooding rather than a widespread event.
Texas holds eight active National Weather Service alerts this morning, Arkansas four, Oklahoma three, and Louisiana one. New Mexico does not appear among the states carrying land based alerts, though the excessive rainfall risk drawn over it is a forecast rather than an alert.
For New Mexico households the specific concern with tropical moisture over dry ground is that it runs off rather than soaking in, which is what turns an arroyo or a normally dry wash into moving water within minutes. Burn scars behave the same way and worse. Do not drive into water across a road, which is the National Weather Service's Turn Around, Don't Drown guidance. That guidance matters more in this terrain than almost anywhere else in the country, because the water arrives fast and often from a storm you cannot see from where you are standing.
Louisiana and eastern Texas are drying out after the week's rainfall. The remains of Edouard have moved on and the National Hurricane Center issued its final advisory on the system earlier in the week.
Infrastructure
The Ross fire in Palo Pinto County, Texas, west of Fort Worth, stands at 90,048 acres and 31 percent contained in the National Interagency Fire Center report dated September 2. It is the only large uncontained fire in this region and the largest active fire outside the West. Nationally the wildfire preparedness level stands at 5, its highest step, with 84 large uncontained fires and 20,245 personnel assigned. The year to date total is 52,626 fires and 8,265,751 acres, which is 126 percent of the ten year average for fires and 163 percent for acres. Those figures come from the National Interagency Fire Center report dated September 2, so they are one to two days behind this morning.
No grid emergencies are reported across the five states this morning. Power that was lost during the week's flooding in southeast Texas has largely been restored.
No boil water notice for the systems affected by this week's flooding in southeast Texas could be confirmed this run. Not confirming one is not the same as confirming there is none. If your water system was affected, your utility's own notice is the authority, not this brief.
Public Health
No public health advisories specific to the region were confirmed this run. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Health Alert Network archive could not be read this run, so this brief makes no claim about national health advisories in either direction.
Watch Item
The tropical moisture streaming north from Hurricane Marie is the thing to follow into next week. Marie is a category 2 hurricane well southwest of the Baja California peninsula, moving west-northwest and away from land, and it poses no direct wind threat to the United States. Its moisture is a different matter: the Weather Prediction Center already carries a slight risk of excessive rainfall for southern and central Utah on Sunday into Monday from that source, and New Mexico sits along the same corridor.
The Atlantic side is quiet and expected to stay quiet. The National Hurricane Center reports no tropical cyclones and no expected formation over the next seven days. For the Texas and Louisiana coasts, in the middle of the season's busiest month, that is a real opening.
It is worth using on the specific thing this week demonstrated. Households along the upper Texas coast and in southwest Louisiana just watched how fast a flooding situation develops and how slowly it drains. The useful follow up is not more supplies but better records: photographs of the inside of your home, a written list of what is in the garage and the closets, and confirmation of whether your flood insurance is in force. New policies generally carry a waiting period, and standard homeowner policies do not cover flood.
Drought is the slower variable and it is about to move. The United States Drought Monitor released a new map on September 3 using data valid September 1, which captures some but not all of this week's Texas rainfall. The national percentage could not be read from the site this run and is not quoted here.
Explore Today
Flood exposure for your address, which is the question this week made concrete.
What the stretch after the first three days actually asks of a household.
Storage and treatment for the days when the tap is not trustworthy.