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Dry winds raising fire threat in county

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The national weather service in Houston/Galveston has issued a fire weather watch which is in effect from Thursday morning through Thursday evening and will include Wharton and several adjacent counties.

Critical fire weather conditions are expected in the wake of a strong cold front predicted to cross the area late Wednesday night. Humidity levels are expected to drop sharply this morning, falling to the 20 to25 percent range between 10 and 11 a.m. and bottoming out in the 10 to 20 percent range mid afternoon. Humidities will not recover to above 25 percent until after sunset. Gusty north winds of 15 to 25 mph will develop by mid to late morning today and persist until sunset.

A fire weather watch means that critical fire weather conditions are forecast to occur.

The weather watch was issued after forecasts showed Tropical Storm Richard aiming for the Texas coast, but not producing any significant predictions of rain.

Instead, brisk winds and mainly dry skies mean Wharton County is inching closer to a bum ban each day.

"The map looks a little scary, but I still think we will see no effects from Richard in Southeast Texas," Wharton County Emergency Management Coordinator Andy Kirkland said Monday.

"The northern portion of the Gulf has started to cool, Richard will be running into some upper level wind shear, and the front we have been promised will all combine where we probably won't even see any rain off of this system."

Historically no tropical storms near Richard's current location have hit Texas in the month of October between 1851 and 2009, according to National Weather Service records.

Hurricane season doesn't actually end until Nov. 30, although the peak of the season for the Gulf Coast is typically August and September. Wharton County could ac-fually use a fair amount of rainfall soon.

Only .22 inches of rain had fallen in El Campo this month as of Oct. 25, according to the Lower Colorado River Authority gauge located on the grounds of El Campo Memorial Hospital.

The LCRA gauge in Wharton reports no October rainfall at all.

As of presstime Tuesday, the county averaged 450 on the state's Keetch-Byram Drought Index, the zero to 800 scale used to determine if a burn ban should be implemented. The scale measures moisture missing from the soil with zero being basically standing water and each 100 points indicating the soil needs about an inch of rain.

At 500, the county automatically implements a burn ban.

"We really could use some rain," Kirkland said.



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© 2010 East Bernard Express East Bernard, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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