How to Increase Situational Awareness During Hurricane Season

6/2/2026 – The authoritative websites below can help you develop situational awareness of everything going on around you during hurricane season emergencies. I highly recommend bookmarking them and consulting them regularly. I list them in the order in which you will probably need them.

For Early Awareness of Approaching Danger

National Hurricane Center Forecasts and active storm tracking. I check it every morning during the hurricane season and look at both the 2- and 7 day outlooks. If you see something concerning, check out the pages with satellite and radar imagery. Heading to the beach? Check out NHC’s rip current map. There’s more. Much more.

National Weather Service/Houston-Galveston Office Get current weather info and warnings for our area.

National Weather Service/Storm Prediction Center Covers watches/warnings nationwide, including tornadoes often associated with tropical events.

Impending Floods

Harris County Flood Warning System. Real-time rainfall, and river-channel monitoring and forecasting. The Warning System also contains near-real-time inundation mapping. The gage network extends throughout the greater Houston area. Sign up for alerts!

USGS National Water Dashboard – Shows gage heights and discharge rates of streams across the nation including dozens in the Houston area. Useful to see where water is coming from and when peaks will arrive at a point near you.

Texas Flood Viewer. Shows gages throughout Texas. Click on a dot and you can see current water level relative to various flood stages.

SJRA River Forecast Dashboard – Shows latest updates of levels on streams and rivers in the upper San Jacinto Basin. Get it at a glance. Very easy to follow. Also see SJRA’s Event Monitoring Page when floods threaten.

FloodMap.net. Enter an elevation (in meters) above current sea level to see what areas would be inundated by a flood of that height. See how floodwaters spread or recede as you increase or decrease the height. Helps visualize why some areas flood and others don’t.

City of Houston Water Flood Hazards Maps flood hazard extents for many smaller streams and ditches in neighborhoods that are not covered in other maps that focus mainly on river flooding.