FLHurricane.com: EastPac Hurricane Manuel Makes Landfall: Texas Flooding Likely

Above: WV with Fronts & Manuel noted. Taken Sept. 19, 2013 1500 UTC

A herculean resurgence of previously declared dead Manuel lead to an unforecast landfall of the somewhat small, yet very potent Cat 1 hurricane, just west of Culiacan, along the west coast of Mexico, shortly after 7AM PDT today, September 19.

Manuel is presently pushing north-northeast further into some coastal plains, and as of this entry, is surprisingly still largely intact - and thus operationally being held as a 65kt hurricane in the 10AM PDT advisory. However, tall mountains lay ahead, and Manuel is forecast to soon begin decoupling, with the LLC spinning down over Mexico, with copious deep layer moisture streaming northeast out of old Mexico and into Texas.

Even without the additional moisture that is now being funneled into Texas from Hurricane Manuel, residual moisture left over from some of the remains of two other tropical cyclones, TD8 and Hurricane Ingrid, have already been helping keep things on the moist side the past few weeks, and because the last several days in particular have seen yet more rounds of tropical rains throughout several parts of the state, much of the ground is already wet, and in some places, saturated.

In the Water Vapor image above, the cold front currently draped across the Four Corners region and curving northeast into the midwest is forecast to drop south into Texas later this week, along with an associated upper-level trough. The interactions of the front and trough with the copious moisture already in place - and now with much more to come - should result in widespread showers and storms, some of them possibly very heavy and torrential, over the next two to three days, starting today. Activity is expected to finally taper off by Sunday morning, drying out from the north/northwest to the south/southeast.

Invest 95L in the Gulf will likely get blocked by the approaching front, and thus is not expected to 'landfall' in Texas, at least not in the near-term.