The saving grace for Texas (and much of the rest of the Gulf coast) is that wind shear over the Gulf of Mexico should remain quite high during at least the next few weeks. That’s because the Jet Stream will continue its southerly course, stirring up the upper levels of the atmosphere over the Gulf.
Absent this shear, Alberto could have become a somewhat powerful hurricane as it spent more than a day over the Loop current.
An excellent point. I point everyone again to Dr. Jeff Masters’s blog post on this topic, which features a nifty map of Alberto’s path over the Loop current.
