The summer of 2007 already saw record rainfall and flooding across parts of the Southern Plains. Tropical Storm Erin, which originally made landfall just north of Corpus Christi, has continued to add more heavy rain to the region as a rather persistent tropical depression.

Erin began as a tropical depression on the night of 14 August 2007 (local time) in the central Gulf of Mexico. The system had little time to develop as it moved northwestward straight towards Texas. It made landfall as a weak tropical storm early on the morning of the 16th of August. This first image shows Erin in the Gulf of Mexico as it was approaching the Texas coastline. The image was taken by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (or TRMM) satellite at 18:05 UTC (1:05 pm CDT) on the 15th of August 2007 and shows the horizontal pattern of rain intensity within the storm. Rain rates in the center of the swath are from the TRMM PR, and those in the outer swath come from the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI). The rain rates are overlaid on infrared (IR) data from the TRMM Visible Infrared Scanner (VIRS). TRMM shows that Erin was weak and poorly organized. There is no evidence of an eye, the system is asymmetric with most of the rain north of the center, and there is very little banding or curvature in the rain field. At the time of this image, Erin was a weak tropical storm with maximum sustained winds reported at 35 knots (40 mph) by the National Hurricane Center. However, even weak systems are capable of producing heavy rain and flooding.

The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center monitors rainfall over the global Tropics. This next image shows MPA rainfall totals for the period 10 to 20 August 2007 for the northwest Gulf Coast and the surrounding region. The band of heavy rain follows Erin's path from initial landfall along the central Texas Gulf coast as a tropical storm and on into West Texas and central Oklahoma as a long-lasting tropical depression. The highest rainfall totals for the period (shown in red) are actually well inland on the order of 200 to 250 mm (~8 to 10 inches) over central Oklahoma. The central Texas Gulf Coast also received a substantial amount of rain, on the order of 100 to 200 mm (~4 to 8 inches), where Erin made landfall. A swath of two-inch-plus amounts (green areas) extends up through central Texas. So far, up to 7 people are reported to have died as a result of the storm. Six more people were recently killed in separate flooding across the upper Mid West.

TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA.

Images and animations produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI/NASA GSFC) and caption by Steve Lang (SSAI/NASA GSFC)