News of a more local sort

This is the difference a small path divergence can make for a small tropical system: A much weakened Beryl took steady aim for several days at an area just south of the Mexican border. Then for a day or two the forecast pointed right at my home, before it started to drift further up the coast on Thursday. At that point I released my reservation with a contractor to put up my storm shutters, even knowing that I'm still convalescing and couldn't do it alone, while Greg's back (though improving) wouldn't permit him to help at all. Friday the track wobbled between us and further east.

On Saturday I managed to get two strapping young men out here to pull lawn furniture and some potted plants into the garage, but I released them as well without making them stay to put a shutter even on a big double door that opens inward and gave us the worst time during Harvey.

In the end, the storm has set sail for tiny Palacios, halfway to Houston from here. It may briefly regain hurricane status and make landfall with 75-85mph winds, heading almost directly for the coastal and isolated South Texas Nuclear Plant on its way to College Station and then Texarkana, missing both Houston and Dallas.

On this map, our little peninsula is just west of the first bay shown east of Corpus Christi, called "Espiritu Santo." (Our bay, Copano, is too small to show up here; not even Corpus's much bigger bay is visible. Landfall is expected just east of Matagorda Bay, the large bay down the coast from Houston's Galveston Bay.) Here at home, we'll likely get some light wind and, if we're lucky, 2-3 inches of rain.

Greg is dutifully but gingerly doing his PT. Knock on wood, it seems he may not need surgery, if his little enzymes continue to eat up the bits of extruded disc. Considering that he's been out of commission for two months, that's surprising but welcome news, like this storm track and minor intensity.