HOUSTON – Seven years ago to the day, Hurricane Harvey made landfall along the Middle Texas Coast near Port Aransas, unleashing devastating winds to parts of the state and catastrophic flooding to other parts, including the Houston area.
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Harvey would undergo rapid intensification 48 hours before making landfall near Port Aransas on San Jose Island around 10 p.m. on Aug. 25, 2017, as a devastating category 4 hurricane. Harvey had maximum sustained winds of 130 mph at landfall and reemerged over the bay to make landfall again near the communities of Rockport and Fulton, causing widespread destruction.
Harvey would slow down to a forward motion of around 5 mph before meandering for several days across parts of Southeast Texas. It would eventually reenter the Gulf of Mexico, maintaining tropical storm strength the entire time before making a final landfall near Cameron, LA on Aug. 30.
Extremely heavy rainfall would cause unprecedented flooding across much of Southeast Texas and rivers rose rapidly. Some areas of Southeast Texas saw over 50 inches of rain over the course of a few days from Harvey. National Weather Service records show Friendswood saw 56 inches of rain from Aug. 25 to Aug. 31, 2017 as a result of Harvey.
Harvey would end up rivaling Hurricane Katrina as the costliest tropical cyclone on record. At the time, it was the first hurricane to hit the Texas coast since Hurricane Ike in 2008 and the first major hurricane since Bret in 1999.
Tens of thousands of people were displaced by the storm and thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed. The National Weather Service said at least 70 deaths were blamed on the storm.
The National Weather Service has an extensive archive of information related to Hurricane Harvey. Click here for more.