Just what Texas needs

One of my brothers from Austin was talking with me last week about what it would take to bring an end to the endless string of hot, dry days in Texas.

We agreed a tropical storm would be perfect. It would deliver plenty of rain, but without the dangerous storm surge and hurricane-force winds.

As anyone who has followed weather knows, even a weak tropical storm can produce big trouble. Tropical Storm Allison dumped more than 40 inches of rain near Houston and killed 23 people in 1989. Nobody's wishing for that.

But rain is desperately needed in the Longhorn State, and now Tropical Storm Don appears poised to deliver.

Consensus seems to be that Don will make landfall Friday night near Corpus Christi, but its path is a major issue. Earlier forecasts called for Don to be moving northwest, and since it is a small tropical storm, most of its rain would fall west of the state's major populated areas -- Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston.

The rain shield in tropical storms tends to spread as it makes landfall, but if Don plows into southwest Texas, it would be too far west to help some of the places where precipitation is needed most.

At midday Thursday, however, the computer models started indicating Tropical Storm Don might curve a bit farther north than first thought. That would make a huge difference in where the heavy rain falls.

This is something worth following, because it has implications that amount to millions of dollars in agriculture revenue.