4:45pm Friday: Final Forecast for Harvey

Tragically, the forecast has come true for Harvey. Maximum winds are now 125 mph and it is a strong category 3 hurricane. It would not surprise me if a touch more intensification occurred (there is still lightning near the eye, see below) and Harvey became a borderline Cat 4. Pressured has continued to drop and it is now 941 mb.

Here is the radar at 4:44pm. I have drawn the area of strongest winds on top of the radar image.

The red polygon is a tornado warning (take shelter!).

The rainfall forecast for the next seven days is little changes with more than 20" in the pink area. It would not surprise me if there were fairly widespread 30" storm totals. Flooding and storm surge in this region will be both unsurpassed and catastrophic.

I will do a few updates this evening but they will not be forecasts.