CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — 1) Hurricane Harvey, 2017. Harvey made landfall at 10pm on San Jose Island, east of Rockport as a major category 4 hurricane the night of August 25. Top wind speeds reached 152 mph. The area around Copano Bay and between Rockport/Fulton and Port Aransas took the worst of Harvey's wrath, experiencing category 4 force winds. Scars of that night are still visible heading into 2020. Harvey went on to be a historic rain producer, dropping 60" of rain in parts of SE Texas and flooding the city of Houston in the days after its Coastal Bend landfall.
2) Share You Christmas Snow - Dec. 8, 2017. Corpus Christi and parts of the Coastal Bend woke up to a winter wonderland the Friday of our KIII Share Your Christmas Food Drive. Much of Corpus Christi received between 4 and 6" of snow, with parts of the Oso Creek and South Side of Corpus Christi pushing 8". I remember our staff having an epic snowball fight in the lawn of the KIII studios.
3) The drought of 2011. This isn't a singular event, but it is worthy of the list because this went down as the 2nd driest year of all time in Corpus Christi. The Corpus Christi International Airport only received 12.06" of rain in 2011. That's only 38% of what typically falls in any given year. The average rainfall per year in Corpus Christi is 31.76". Only two days observed more than 1" of rain in 2011, Jan. 15 (1.16") and May 12 (1.90"). The driest year on record, if you're curious, is 1917. 5.38" for the ENTIRE YEAR. Yow.
4) The flooding of 2015. Just like the drought year, this was a historic year for rainfall. The 45.02" of rain that fell ranks 2015 as 3rd most in Corpus Christi all-time, receiving about a 40% surplus compared to average in 2015. There were two days in May that both yielded 4.56" of rain. I had a professor in grad school (Dr. Wax) who would always say weather is either feast or famine; hardly ever average. We see that comparing 2011 and 2015. The most rain ever recorded in a single year is 48.16". The year, 1888. I remember it well.
5) South Texas Ice Storm - Feb. 3/4, 2011. I wasn't working at Channel Tres (I was in Wyoming) for this one, so I deferred to Bill Vessey for #5. By the way, Bill agrees with 1-4 on this list. This event produced a lot of freezing drizzle. Freezing drizzle, or rain, is water existing as a super-cooled liquid (below 32°) that turns to ice immediately after it touches something. It doesn't take much ice in South Texas to create big problems on the road and with power lines. A little sleet/snow did fall in the Brush Country, but this was primarily an icing event. And that's the icing on the cake for this blog.
- Alan Holt
