Tropical Storm Hermine Brings Rain and Lots of it to Texas

Tropical Storm Hermine crossed the Rio Grande River into south Texas with high winds and heavy rain after making landfall in northeastern Mexico hours earlier, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The storm was about 65 miles southwest of Corpus Christi, Texas, at 4 a.m Tuesday morning.

Hermine’s sustained winds dropped to 50 miles per hour from near hurricane-force when it crossed the coast about 40 miles south of Brownsville. The rain-laden storm is expected to weaken further as it moves from Texas northward into Oklahoma over the next day or so, the center said.

Hermine, the eighth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, may bring as much as 8 inches of rain to northeastern Mexico and southern Texas with isolated areas getting as much as a foot of precipitation.

Goats on a Ledge

Two young goats wandered onto the thin ledge of a railroad bridge and spent nearly two days high above the ground until rescuers in a towering cherry picker plucked them from their perch, hungry but safe.

The young female animals weighing 25 and 35 pounds mostly stayed on the angled ledge, even though there was a wider surface area on a pillar just a few feet away.  It isn't clear how these goats wandered out on to this ledge in a rural area of Billings, MT.

The goats sometimes stepped to the pillar to urinate then returned to the narrower ledge, where they tried to rest their tired legs by tucking them under their bodies for a few seconds, she said.

Authorities were called Tuesday, when the goats were first spotted. But confusion about the location delayed the rescue until another caller alerted the humane society on Wednesday along with the Musselshell County sheriff's office.

The sheriff's office, Church and Cory Freeman, a humane society volunteer who runs the Animal Edventures Sanctuary, enlisted the help of officials at Signal Peak Energy, which operates a nearby coal mine.

Mine boss John DeMichiei volunteered mining equipment with an arm high enough to reach the stranded goats that eventually moved to the pillar.

The rescue went smoothly, and the goats appeared to be in good condition.

UPS Cargo Plane Crashes in Dubai

 A UPS cargo plane with two crew members on board crashed shortly after takeoff Friday outside Dubai, officials said. There was no immediate word on casualties. 

The plane went down inside an Emirati air base near a busy highway intersection about 10 miles southeast of Dubai's international airport. The state news agency WAM reported the crash occurred in an unpopulated desert area, suggesting there may not have been casualties on the ground.

UPS spokeswoman Kristen Petrella said the Boeing 747-400 went down at about 8 p.m. in Dubai (12 p.m. EST). Flight 6 was en route to the UPS hub in Cologne, Germany, she said. Petrella said the plane had two crew members but the company has not confirmed any casualties.

Earl Could Produce Power Outages and Wind Damage at U.S. Open

The danger from most hurricanes is from water – either the massive amount of rain that falls or the surge that the high winds push onshore.  But in the case of the hurricane Earl path, the bigger problem once it leaves the New York and New England area is likely to be wind damage.

Since trees still have full foliage this time of year, the damage is expected to be worse than the fall, when nor’easters often hit the New England region.

Rain is only one thing U.S. Open Tennis officials have to worry about with Earl.  The U.S. Open is in the middle of a 2-week run in New York. 

We could see limbs down and the uprooting of trees,” says Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “If the roads are covered with trees, this could be a problem for responders if someone has an emergency.”

From the easternmost part of New York to Rhode Island and Cape Cod, Earl is expected to unleash wind gusts of 75 to 100 miles per hour, says meteorologist Mike Pigott of AccuWeather.com. In the eastern part of Cape Cod around Chatham, MA, for example, the winds could reach a sustained 75 miles per hour.

On Thursday morning, the National Hurricane Center officially put southeastern Massachusetts – including Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard – on hurricane warning status. That means the region can expect winds of at least 74 miles per hour, probably starting Friday evening.

Utility crews on the East Coast are gearing up for the prospect of clearing trees off power lines and restringing lines, says Jim Owen, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute in Washington.

With widespread wind damage, power outages can stretch for days or maybe even longer. “That is why we encourage people to prepare and have adequate supplies of food and water, so they can withstand maybe several days without electricity,” says Owen.

One indication of how long power outages can go: After Wilma, a powerful hurricane, roared through Florida in 2005, many residents went for more than two weeks without electricity.

Let's hope Earl is a tennis fan and stays mostly out at sea.

Hurricane Earl Threatens Friday's Play at U.S. Open

Although Hurricane Earl has weakened from a Category 4 to a Category 3 storm and isn't expected to land a direct hit to New Jersey and New York, the Labor Day weekend is likely to begin Friday with wet weather, according to the National Weather Service.

The National Weather Service is calling for a 30 percent chance of showers in the overnight hours of Friday morning at the Shore. Later in the day, there is a greater probability of showers with winds gusting up to 37 miles per hour and dangerous surf.

The rest of the weekend after Friday looks good right now.

As of 8 a.m., Earl was about 180 miles east of San Salvador in the Bahamas and moving northwest at 16 miles per hour with sustained winds topping out at 125 miles per hour. The storm is now about 780 miles from Cape Hatteras, N.C, where it could land a blow as early as Thursday night.

Friday tennis play could be in jeopardy if Earl continues at its current strength and course.