Edouard dumps over 20 inches of rain on Texas, and the flood threat isn’t over
The next Atlantic storm name is Edouard.
(CNN) — Heavy rain from former Tropical Storm Edouard is still falling on eastern Texas nearly two days after the storm made landfall, but relief is coming.
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The flood threat should finally ease Thursday afternoon, but flash flood warnings were in effect Thursday morning for a batch of slow-moving downpours near Palestine and Lufkin, Texas.
The current flood risk is 50 to 100 miles northwest of areas hardest hit Wednesday. A month’s worth of rain fell in an hour and localized rainfall totals topped 20 inches in the area north of Beaumont, Texas, resulting in dangerous flash flooding and water rescues.
Another round of torrential rain Wednesday night dumped 2 to 4 inches per hour on some of the same saturated locations.
Heavy rain should lose its steam on Thursday afternoon. Hit-or-miss storms are possible through Friday, but the overall flood danger is much lower.
River flooding could linger long after the heaviest rain ends. River flood warnings are in effect along the Neches River and several tributaries, with some extending into the weekend.
Edouard’s legacy
Tiny Tropical Storm Edouard pelted the Texas-Louisiana border region with strong winds as it intensified through landfall on Tuesday, but extreme rainfall will be its legacy.
It started when the storm got stuck over the same areas of eastern Texas Tuesday night through Wednesday, wringing out 10 to 21 inches of rain. A flash flood emergency — the highest level of flood warning from the National Weather Service — was issued on Wednesday morning in parts of Hardin and Tyler counties as a result.
Roughly a dozen motorists were rescued after driving into water on roadways in Hardin County, according to a county emergency management news release. Two people were also rescued from a home that had flooded. Around 10 structures were damaged by fallen trees and limbs, and one commercial building sustained “extensive roof damage,” according to the release.
An assisted living facility in the county was also damaged, requiring responders to evacuate 21 people who are unable to walk on their own, according to the Texas Game Wardens, whose personnel assisted.
The flash flood emergency expired late Wednesday morning, but a new one was issued Wednesday night for Saratoga and nearby parts of western Hardin County, which received more than 6 inches of rain in about two hours.
Highway 787 was closed because of high water, and several water rescues were conducted Wednesday night, according to the National Weather Service. CNN has reached out to local authorities for additional details.
To the northeast, in neighboring Polk County, authorities helped five people leave a mobile home surrounded by water, County Judge Sydney Murphy told CNN. The five included three children and a baby, CNN affiliate KPRC reported. Floodwater was around waist-deep in the area after a nearby creek overflowed.
Murphy issued a local disaster declaration Wednesday due to Edouard’s impacts.
The storm’s winds, which gusted from 60 to 90 mph near the Texas-Louisiana border, downed trees and limbs and power lines across multiple Texas counties. Power is still out for more than 30,000 homes and businesses across eastern Texas as of early Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.com.
El Niño is bossing hurricane season
Another short-lived storm fits with what the 2026 Atlantic season has delivered so far due to a strengthening and potentially record-breaking El Niño.
The 2026 Atlantic hurricane season’s activity is running just 11% of average as of September 1, according to one measure .
Dolly fell apart in the open Atlantic on August 28 after just 24 hours. Cristobal disintegrated just as quickly in the northern Atlantic on August 13. The other two storms, Arthur and Bertha, had brief shelf lives in the Gulf in June and July, respectively.
The Atlantic basin is now set to experience its latest first hurricane since 2013, according to satellite-assisted records dating to 1966. The record latest first hurricane is September 11, set by Gustav in 2002 and tied by Humberto in 2013.
September is the typical peak of Atlantic hurricane season thanks to a combination of more favorable weather ingredients.
The most basic building block is warmer water temperatures, which peak in September after basking in summer’s heat, and provide fuel for storms to form and strengthen.
Lower wind shear, aka tropical-system kryptonite, is the other big ingredient. Wind shear involves changes in wind speed and direction at different levels of the atmosphere, and it can rip apart anything from budding tropical systems to fully developed hurricanes.
But this year’s El Niño has made wind shear unusually strong and widespread in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean. That has stifled storm chances and ripped apart storms like Dolly.
It’s also the main reason forecasters have called for a muted season overall.
But that’s no reason to ignore the rest of hurricane season completely. Storms can still find windows of opportunity to form and become a threat, even in an overall subdued season.
The-CNN-Wire
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CNN Meteorologists Dakota Smith, Tyler Ory and Mary Gilbert contributed to this report.
