By Shea Gibson

By Meteorologist Shea Gibson on 9/15/21

On Monday night, Tropical Storm Nicholas was close to making landfall along the Texas coast after a journey from the Bay of Campeche. It quickly gained strength through the day and we started seeing hurricane force gusts at a few of our stations near dusk. As the core of the system edges closer to the Matagorda and Sargent coast, our Matagorda sensor saw a one minute sustained winds of 66 knots (76mph) and a gust to 83 knots (95mph).

WeatherFlow works closely with NOAA/NWS/NHC to make our rich dataset available in real-time. And we have some of the best weather stations in the world! Our stations have been properly vetted and the data is considered invaluable during real-time events such as these. The NHC release an immediate statement when this occurred:

“Very recently, a WeatherFlow Station at Matagorda Bay, Texas, reported sustained winds of 66 kt with a gust to 83 kts (95mph). Based on this observation, Nicholas is being upgraded to a hurricane on this advisory, and a Hurricane Warning is issued.”

For the record, Nicholas was upgraded immediately to hurricane status and a whole new set of warnings were issued as a result of the strengthening storm. Nicholas made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane near Sargent Beach, TX around 12:30 am CDT.

And now we continue on into the remainder of the hurricane season, which doesn’t end until November 30th.

Stay safe everyone!

Shea Gibson
Meteorologist: SE Region & Tropics
Outreach and New Weather Station Projects