It's hard to take a storm named Bill seriously, but Tropical Storm Bill looks to be a rare beast. The storm hit the U.S. coast around noon and meteorologists are claiming that it could create a “ring of fire” weather pattern that will arc over Houston, St. Louis, and New York City during the next week.
And according to Marshall Shepherd, the director of atmospheric sciences at the University of Georgia, there might also be a “brown ocean” phenomenon in the mix, too. This is the weird part:
"While tropical storms usually gather power from the warm waters of the ocean and then weaken once they move over land, NASA-funded research has shown some storms can actually strengthen over land by drawing from the evaporation of abundant soil moisture," Shepherd said. "The phenomenon is known as the 'brown ocean' effect."
And since May was the wettest month in U.S. history…well, you get the picture. Bill is actually going to get stronger as it moves inland. On top of that, the National Weather Service is expecting Bill to bring around seven to nine inches of rain in the next seven days — the equivalent of several months worth of rain.
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Texas is up first: Galveston Island was evacuated yesterday and Bill is expected to bring a foot of rain to central Texas and Houston, both of which set rainfall and flooding records only a few weeks ago. Dallas is preparing to open its Emergency Operation Center tonight.
"Anybody who lives in a low lying area should make plans not to be in that low lying areas," Weather Channel meteorologist Kevin Roth said. Texas' threatened coastal regions have already been evacuated.
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