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Tropical Depression Beta swamps Texas: Houston gets over a foot of rain, roads are under water

Although weakening to a tropical depression, torrential rain and flooding from Beta continued to swamp portions of Texas on Tuesday.

Already, over a foot of rain had fallen in some areas around Houston, leaving roadways flooded and motorists stranded.

Houston officials urged people to avoid traveling Tuesday as many roads were already inundated in the southern and southwestern parts of the city, AccuWeather reported. Multiple high-water rescues were needed Tuesday morning in southern Harris County, which includes Houston, according to local law enforcement.

Dozens of streets were closed by fast-rising water, including parts of Interstate 69 and Interstate 45 and State Highways 288 and 290, Weather.com said.

By mid-morning Tuesday, the center of Beta was 15 miles east-northeast of Victoria, Texas, with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm was moving toward the northeast at 2 mph and is expected to stall inland over Texas through Wednesday.

Read more: Flooding from Beta swallows cars in Houston

More: 'Crazy' 2020 hurricane season matches 2005 in activity, but not storm intensity

Forecasters say Beta will gradually pick up forward speed across the southern U.S. this week, but not before unleashing more flooding rainfall in the Houston area and triggering pockets of flooding from eastern Texas and Louisiana to Georgia in the coming days, AccuWeather said.

"The slow motion of Beta will continue to produce a long-duration rainfall event from the middle Texas coast to southern Louisiana," the Hurricane Center said. "Flash, urban, and minor to isolated moderate river flooding is likely."

A man walks through a street flooded by Tropical Storm Beta on Monday, Sept. 21, 2020, in Galveston, Texas.
A man walks through a street flooded by Tropical Storm Beta on Monday, Sept. 21, 2020, in Galveston, Texas.

For the middle and upper Texas coast, additional rainfall of 5 to 10 inches with isolated storm totals up to 20 inches is expected.

On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 29 Texas counties ahead of Beta’s arrival.

Beta is also forecast to dump heavy rain on the southwestern corner of Louisiana three weeks after the same area got pounded by Hurricane Laura. The rainfall and storm surge prompted Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards to declare a state of emergency.

'Teddy & Beta forever': NOAA satellite image shows storms 'holding hands' over Atlantic

Beta made landfall Monday around 10 p.m. near the southern end of the Matagorda Peninsula, according to the Hurricane Center. It was the ninth named storm to make landfall in the U.S. this year, tying a record set in 1916, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

It was also the first Greek alphabet storm to make landfall in the U.S. Forecasters ran out of traditional storm names last week, forcing the use of the Greek alphabet for only the second time since the 1950s.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane Teddy continued to roar toward eastern Canada, with a predicted landfall in Nova Scotia early Wednesday before moving into Newfoundland on Wednesday night, forecasters said.

Teddy was expected to weaken later Tuesday and Wednesday but forecasters said it would likely be a strong, post-tropical cyclone when it moves in and over Nova Scotia.

Tropical storm warnings are in effect in Nova Scotia, where Environment Canada cautions that because “rees are still in full leaf … winds could cause limbs to break with some tree falls, likely leading to many power outages,” the Capital Weather Gang reported.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Beta, Houston flooding: Tropical storm leaves roads underwater