Local photographer T.J. Tijerina captured this image of a lightning strike during Wednesday's thunderstorms in San Benito. (Photo by T.J. Tijerina)
By FRANCISCO E. JIMENEZ
Staff Writer
reporter@sbnewspaper.com
Rain, rain, don’t go away.
By all accounts, it might not.
According to meteorologists from the Brownsville National Weather Service, there is a chance that more rain will be coming this way next Wednesday and Thursday.
“Right now we’re not expecting any rain on Sunday through Tuesday night. Wednesday through Thursday next week we are expecting some isolated showers and thunderstorms mainly in the afternoon,” said Mike Castillo of the Brownsville National Weather Service. “That’s subject to change depending on if we have anything developing in the tropics, but as of now we don’t have anything. We don’t have any problem systems developing right now that we know of. Unless we get a Tropical system, it will probably be our typical sea breeze-type showers and thunderstorms.”
This comes after an estimated 2.93 inches of rain fell on San Benito on Wednesday, a great sign considering the relatively dry summer it has been thus far.
“We don’t have an actual average for San Benito, but we do have one for Harlingen. The normal value that we would have for this time of the year for Harlingen would be about 12 inches of rainfall. That’s a 30-year average,” said Meteorologist Tim Speece of the Brownsville National Weather Service. “Harlingen, even with the rainfall that they have had over the last several days, they’re still 7.67 inches below normal for the year. Likely, the similar conditions exist for San Benito. It probably helped catch up that rain deficit. It improved it quite a bit. The Brownsville average is still 2.66 inches below normal for the year, even with the rainfall we’ve had over the last several days.”
Speece described the recent rainfall as being more “tropical” in nature.
“The sea breeze helped it out some. That’s actually helping some (rain) develop,” said Speece. “It’s sort of a combination of the daytime heating and a deep tropical moisture we have coming in from the Gulf of Mexico.”
In anticipation of more rainfall in the near future, Mayor Joe H. Hernandez is looking to improve the current drainage system.
“Especially on McCullough Road,” said Hernandez. “We’re getting ready to sit down with the drainage district and of course the housing authority. They own the land there, and there was a discussion before because there needs to be some improvement there. We should be doing that soon.”
In the meantime, the mayor said there have been no reports of any flooding since Wednesday’s downpour. “I think our people were very much prepared as far as cleaning up the drains and things like that,” Hernandez said. “I was very happy (about the rain). We’re back to where we needed to be as far as the drought. It was kind of scary.”
To see this story in print, pick up a copy of the June 26 edition of the San Benito News. Or view our E-Edition by clicking here.
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