Tropical Storm Don loses momentum

In addition to a rare Russian tornado, this past weekend (July 29-31, 2011) also brought the end our use of the 1971-2000 climate normals – and a disappointing end to Tropical Storm Don.

Tropical Storm Don – the first tropical storm of 2011 to make landfall in the U.S. – was the strangest system I have ever seen. In fact, a lot of meteorologists were shocked to see how fast it dissipated over portions of southern Texas.

Here’s what the National Hurricane Center posted:

POST-TROPICAL CYCLONE DON DISCUSSION NUMBER 11

NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL042011

400 AM CDT SAT JUL 30 2011

THE DON IS DEAD. THE CYCLONE LITERALLY EVAPORATED OVER TEXAS ABOUT AS FAST AS I HAVE EVER SEEN WITHOUT MOUNTAINS INVOLVED. DON HAS NO CONVECTION…MEAGER RAINFALL…AND ONLY A SLIGHT SIGNATURE IN SURFACE OBSERVATIONS AND RADAR DATA. THEREFORE…THIS IS THE LAST ADVISORY ON THIS SYSTEM. DON SHOULD OPEN UP INTO A TROUGH LATER TODAY AS IT MOVES TO THE WEST-NORTHWEST AND IS NOT EXPECTED TO POSE A RAINFALL THREAT.

FORECASTER BLAKE

Click here to expand image above

In other words, the National Hurricane Center summarized it all in that paragraph alone. That’s unusual.

As for rainfall, forget about it. The projected rainfall totals were supposed to be around 2-4 inches, but that never happened. Brownsville, Texas recorded 0.63 inches of rain from Tropical Storm Don, and the farther north you went, the less rainfall you saw. Corpus Christi recorded a pathetic 0.02 inches of rain from Don. We were really hoping that Don could at least help the drought situation that is occurring throughout the Lone Star State, but unfortunately, this time, the drought remained victorious.

I’ll have an update about the tropics and the never-ending heat tomorrow.

Welcome to the new climate normals

More weather news from this weekend: Amazing video of rare Russian tornado