Hurricane Rita made landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border in September 2005, causing major damage and disruption. As Rita approached the Gulf Coast, uncertainties in the storm's track and intensity forecasts, combined with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, led to major evacuations along the Texas coast and significant traffic jams in the broader Houston area. This study investigates the societal impacts of Hurricane Rita and its forecasts through a face-to-face survey with 120 Texas Gulf Coast residents. The survey explored respondents' evacuation decisions prior to Hurricane Rita, their perceptions of hurricane risk, and their use of and opinions on Hurricane Rita forecasts. The vast majority of respondents evacuated from Hurricane Rita, and more than half stated that Hurricane Katrina affected their evacuation decision. Although some respondents said that their primary reason for evacuating was local officials' evacuation order, many reported using information about the hurricane to evaluate the risk it posed to them and their families. Despite the major traffic jams and the minor damage in many evacuated regions, most evacuees interviewed do not regret their decision to evacuate. The majority of respondents stated that they intend to evacuate for a future category 3 hurricane, but the majority would stay for a category 2 hurricane. Most respondents obtained forecasts from multiple sources and reported checking forecasts frequently. Despite the forecast uncertainties, the respondents had high confidence in and satisfaction with the forecasts of Rita provided by the National Hurricane Center.

A database of upper-air soundings was collected for weak (EF0/EF1), significant (EF2/EF3), and violent (EF4/ EF5) tornadoes that occurred within 100 km and 6 h of the rawindsonde observation. After case filtering and quality control, a total of 50 proximity soundings for violent tornadoes and randomized samples of 100 proximity soundings for significant tornadoes and 102 for weak tornadoes were obtained. Key convective parameters were analyzed between the tornado datasets. Low-level instability parameters (0-3-km lapse rates and 0-3-km mixed-layer convective available potential energy) were noteworthy predictors of the highest tornado damage rating, whereas mixed-layer lifted condensation level, wind shear, and effective storm relative helicity displayed little predictive skill distinguishing significant and violent tornado environments. The ability of the significant tornado parameter (STP) to discriminate between significant and violent tornadoes also was analyzed. This analysis found that STP does statistically discriminate between violent and significant tornadoes, with mixedlayer convective available potential energy the best discriminator of its variables. Because of the skill in the lowlevel instability parameters, this study also offers a new violent tornado parameter that includes the low-level instability fields in order to better differentiate between significant and violent tornado environments. ABSTRACT (Manuscript

Tornadoes in eastern Texas generally track to the east as predominant westerly upper flow acts on their parent storms. However, an examination of tornadoes from 2000 to 2018 finds that 22% of all tornadoes in the region move in much more northward directions. These tornadoes’ parent storms develop in the open warm sector prior to the arrival of a main linear forcing mechanism (e.g., front, dryline). In fact, some of the more notable tornado outbreaks in recent years across Texas have occurred from northward-moving thunderstorms. This bifurcation of storm/tornado motions is important to understand for forecasting, warning, and messaging of these events. The results show these tornadoes typically occur eastward of large, slow moving, mid to upper-level long-wave troughs and underneath the left quadrant exit-region of an upper-level jet streak. The composite pattern also shows that a low-level jet in eastern Texas, a surface low centered in west-central Texas, and a warm/stationary front extending northeast of the surface low were common for these events. The typical air mass was indicative of weak instability, low convective inhibition, and high shear. Radar analysis of the northerly moving, tornadic storms showed mesocyclonic circulations with smaller diameters and lower rotational shear when compared with tornadic storms that moved in an easterly direction.