Senor Humberto is starting to rifle off to the northeast along a frontal boundary. Earlier, about half the computer models had it re-emerging in the gulf and circling back for another whack at us, or at someone. Forecasters think that’s highly unlikely now. But do we ever really know? I worry the most about tropical weather when the experts say they’re pretty certain about something. That seems to be when we get in trouble, because however many great satellite images, computer models and skilled people we have, Mother Nature basically writes her own rules, and they change at her whim. I really appreciate what our forecasters do and think our university service has some of the best people in the weather business, but the poorly organized system that became Hurricane Humberto was going to drift west, and it was going to be no more than a weak tropical storm and a big rain producer. I think another half day percolating in the warm Gulf of Mexico, landfall a few miles further west, and we might have had our hands full at UTMB and in Galveston.
As it stands, the folks on the Bolivar Peninsula and around High Island took a pretty good hit. Power is out across the peninsula with some 30 poles down, and the estimate is four days to restore power. There was some extensive damage to both commercial and residential structures, and the road is/was closed at Rollover Pass. Some of our UTMB sites in the Golden Triangle were also without power. Humberto did a little more than dump some heavy rain. The island dodged another bullet.