Erin makes landfall in Lamar/Aransas County, Texas; Dean to come

Erin has just about fizzled out. Accuweather's Joe Bastardi was apparently predicting Erin to hit hurricane status but that did not happen, and in fact at 7 AM Texas time (8 AM Eastern), Tropical Depression Erin made landfall in Lamar, Texas, which is in Aransas County and in the Corpus Christi metro area (about 25 miles north of Corpus) with winds just under tropical storm strength. The depression should be near Del Rio, Texas by early afternoon tomorrow. Earlier Tropical Storm Warnings had been discontinued in far South Texas, namely Willacy and Cameron counties, but now all warnings have been discontinued. Also, there were tornado warnings in Refugio earlier, but those have expired as well. A few minor school closings along the coast, but nothing serious, and a few delays at Hobby & George Bush airports in Houston.

On the other hand, Dean looks to be menacing. It looks like it could hit Cat 4 status by the time it hits Jamaica. The timeline would be Lesser Antillies on Friday (tomorrow) morning, Jamaica Sunday afternoon, Cancun early Tuesday morning. BUT, it could go as far south as Nicaragua and as far north as just off the coast of New Orleans. Winds are up to 80 mph with more strengthening probable. The hurricane hunters are off to investigate this afternoon.

As usual, more updates as we know more.

UPDATE: Dean is up to 100 mph winds and a tropical storm watch has been issued for U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Right now the best tracks take it to Houston, and raise it possibly to 180+ mph winds, which is a STRONG Cat 5...yikes! It looks like by Tuesday afternoon it will be squarely in the Gulf (SOMEWHERE), and we'll know a LOT more.

Speaking of Houston, lots of flooding occurred because of Erin, much more than they thought was going to happen.