Here’s How Hurricane Harvey Could Affect Rochester

This weekend's epic flooding down in Houston and south Texas could have affect us here in southeast Minnesota-- but not necessarily regarding the weather.

One of the big problems with Harvey is, of course, all the rain that's been falling in and around south Texas. CBS News says the storm is stalled over the coast and has a pretty much unlimited supply of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.

Some parts of that area have already experienced nearly 30-inches of rain, with more expect to fall. That's almost impossible for me to wrap my head around! Here's a little perspective: According to U.S. Climate Data, Minnesota gets about 5 inches of rain... throughout all of August!

And, if you remember the Rochester flood of 1978, while that weather event was certainly catastrophic, it still 'only' dropped 7-inches of rain on the Med City. (Not to make light of that event, however; five people died and nearly 60-million dollars in damage was done to the Med City.)

I'd heard late last week, given our forecast for last weekend that was cloudy and rainy (even though it wasn't a complete washout like they said it would be), that our weather could be impacted by Hurricane Harvey.

Turns out, though, that's not true. Megan Mulford, meteorologist Weather Eye, said those weather systems, like Hurricane Harvey, pretty much come on-shore than then head east-- they don't typically head far enough north to have an effect on our weather here in Minnesota.

Here's how Harvey COULD impact us, though: Because so many of the nation's oil refineries are located in that area and are now shut down due to all the flooding, we could expect to see gas prices increase. This Star-Tribune story says it's possible we could see increases at the pump of between "5 to 15 cents per gallon" with an increase of "25 cents by Labor Day was possible."

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