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On This Day in 1979: Tropical Storm Claudette Breaks Rainfall Record
July 26, 2021
By WeatherBug's Intern Meteorologist, Christopher Smith
Texas has been the target for heavy rain-producing tropical systems such as Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and Tropical Storm Imelda in 2019. The year 1979 was no different for the Lone Star State. As a matter of fact, the rain was significant enough to bust through the record books.
Tropical Storm Claudette had origins deep into the Atlantic Ocean when a tropical wave emerged off Africa in mid-July. The storm was named east of the Leeward Islands. It went into the Caribbean and dropped up to nine inches of rain in Puerto Rico and Hispaniola before dissipating.
However, Claudette had a second part to its lifespan as it entered the Gulf of Mexico. The system would regenerate into a tropical depression before strengthening into a tropical storm. While at first Claudette zipped west then north as it made landfall near the Texas/Louisiana border, upper-level ridging unexpectedly built to the north, stalling the system in eastern Texas.
From July 25 to 26, 1979, a whopping 42 inches of rain drenched Alvin, Texas, not only setting a 24-hour rainfall record for the state, but for the entire U.S. This U.S. rainfall record stood for nearly 30 years, but was recently broken from April 14 to 15, 2018, when Waipā Garden, Hawaii, got hammered with 49.69 inches of rain.
Despite all the flooding and copious amounts of rainfall from Claudette, only one death was reported in Texas. Damages from Claudette mounted to $750 million, a far cry from Tropical Storm Imelda’s $5 billion price tag and Harvey’s $125 billion cost.
Claudette was just a reminder that tropical storms can be as impactful and damaging as hurricanes. Even though it didn’t make landfall as a hurricane, Claudette’s slow movement prompted major flooding in Texas.
Sources: wpc.ncep.noaa.gov, ncdc.noaa.gov, nhc.noaa.gov
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Story Image: Tropical Depression Claudette after crossing Puerto Rico on July 18, 1979 (Wikimedia Commons/Visible Earth & NOAA Class via NASA).