EDINBURG — In the ongoing attempt to collect on fines and fees due to Hidalgo County, leaders said they were moving one step closer to finally collecting by developing a new initiative that would allow individuals to pay their overdue fees using the Internet.

On Tuesday at Hidalgo County Commissioners’ Court, officials unanimously approved the creation of “Operation Clean Slate,” a three-phase initiative that could help the county collect on millions of dollars.

“It’s an exciting time to see something moving forward,” said Precinct 4 Commissioner Joseph Palacios.

In the Justices of the Peace department, the county is owed over $40 million, administrators said this week. Previously, officials said the county is owed around $70 million in total, but the JPs offices are owed the biggest amount.

Read more: ‘Operation Clean Slate’

The San Benito Chamber of Commerce will host the Rio Grande Valley Sportsman’s Expo on Aug. 20 in San Benito.  The events consist of the Centennial Skeet Shoot-Out/Cook-Off/Alligator Gar Round-Up and Market Day at the San Benito Fairgrounds on FM 510.

Pre-registration for the event can be made by emailing This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or calling Zeke Padilla at 399-5321. On-site registration begins at 8 a.m. the day of the event. The first shot will be fired at 8:45 a.m. and no teams will be allowed after 10 a.m.

Read more: Shoot-out, cook-off slated as ‘Alligator Round-Up’ returns to Resaca City

LA JOYA – The last time La Joya Independent School District (LJISD) received a recognized status from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for their test scores was in 2001. After 10 years, the district has finally received what they have been trying so hard to achieve – a recognized status for the district.

Last year, one elementary received an “unacceptable” rating from TEA, six elementaries received “exemplary” status, and Palmview High School, six middle schools and 11 elementaries received “recognized” status.

This year, the College Transition Academy was the only La Joya school to receive an exemplary status. Eighteen campuses again received a recognized status and 16 were labeled as academically acceptable, compared to just seven campuses rated “acceptable” last year.

Read more: TEA names La Joya ISD recognized district

The shelves are quite bare at the Mission Food Pantry, but Joe Garcia, assistant manager, is about to head to the grocery store to purchase food to restock the shelves.

“Tomorrow [Tuesday] is going to be a busy day,” he says.

Every Tuesday and Thursday the Mission Food Pantry is filled with dozens of families pouring in to receive food. Each month approximately 2,500 men, women and children rely on food provided by the pantry. And these people are not just from Mission, but also from the surrounding areas like Palmview and Alton, as well as the colonias in Western Hidalgo County.

Read more: Pantry feeds families in need

MISSION – The newest asset for the Mission Regional Medical Center’s Neonate and Pediatric Transport Team was unveiled Tuesday—an ambulance equipped especially for transporting premature infants and pediatric patients. This was the culmination of a service project begun last November by the Leadership Mission Class XXVIII (28).

The class started raising funds for the project last November with a goal of $10,000. Through several fundraisers, they were able to raise nearly $9,000. Kristina Silva, recent past president of Leadership Mission, said the group chose the transport team after lengthy research.

Read more: Leadership Mission class unveils ambulance project

Record power use expected again Wednesday

Conservation needed all week

AUSTIN -- The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc. (ERCOT), system operator for the state’s bulk transmission grid, again set a new electricity demand record with 67,929 megawatts (MW) Tuesday between 4 and 5 p.m. and is expecting to break the record again Wednesday.

“Due to the high temperatures and high electricity usage expected this week, we are continuing to request that consumers and businesses reduce their electricity use during peak electricity hours from 3 to 7 p.m. for the remainder of the week,” said Kent Saathoff, vice president of system planning and operations.

Read more: ERCOT calls for electricity conservation; Texas breaks peak demand record again

PALMVIEW – Operation Lone Star (OLS) began its first week of activities with four locations in the Valley – Brownsville, San Juan, Rio Grande City and Palmview. Next week the program will offer services in Hebbronville and Laredo.

Nearly 400 parents, children and elderly walked through the doors of Palmview High School to receive free medical services on Monday, July 25, OLS’s first day of operations. As of 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, the facility had already registered and seen 157 people.

Read more: Operation Lone Star brings free medical care to Valley communities

Cyclone Fizzles into Drizzle, July 29th, 2011

The National Weather Service office in Brownsville has provided the following summary of the not so Tropical Storm Don that “threatened” the South Texas coast last Friday.

Summary

Tropical Storm Don failed to meet expectations compared with others before it (2010’s Hermine, for one), as a pronounced cluster of strong thunderstorms in and near the center faded into oblivion in a matter of hours, leaving nothing more than gentle, light rains and light to nearly calm winds on land. By the time the surface circulation made landfall in northeastern Kenedy County, precipitation had largely ended across the Lower Rio Grande Valley and skies had begun to clear toward the coast. After the rain shield fell apart, leftover boundaries became active as the back end of the mid level circulation moved across Tamaulipas and Nuevo Léon into early morning of July 30th; locally heavy downpours in isolated to scattered showers and thunderstorms across the Rio Grande Plains and Brush Country of Zapata, Jim Hogg, and Starr County dropped close to an inch of rain in a short period of time between midnight and noon.

The only impacts on land were slippery roads and some ponding of water from South Padre Island to Brownsville and Harlingen during the Friday afternoon commute, along with a few cloud to ground lightning strikes. There were no known measured winds (sustained or gusts) reaching tropical storm force (39 mph). Coastal impacts were minimal; in fact, as the graying skies kept crowds from the beaches, surfers took full advantage of the clean and building surf, which rose high enough for rideable waves but without the tempest on the water that has accompanied other cyclones. The worst impacts were likely across the nearshore waters during the mid-afternoon, when hundreds of cloud to ground lightning strikes, blinding rains, and locally rough seas made for difficulty for any mariners caught out in the cluster.

So, What Killed Don?
The answer seems simple. Or is it? Some small cyclones moving through warm waters often intensify rapidly, turning a relatively routine event into a life-threatening windstorm (Charley, 2004). Others fail to intensify rapidly, and some lose their identity. Research into tropical cyclones is heavily invested in intensity prediction; much more study is needed to improve this critical aspect of forecasting. For Don, we observed three elements which may have led to Don’s struggle to survive, followed by the storm’s rapid demise:

• Dry Atmospheric Air. Don, being moved along by decent east to east–southeast flow in the mid levels of the atmosphere, quickly found inhospitable dry air along it’s path heading to Texas. Dry atmospheric air increases the amount of evaporation, and cooling, in and near the storm environment. While such cooling is favorable for atmospheric instability, it is unfavorable for the "heat engines" that drive tropical cyclones. Such cooling may have led to increased icing in the vertical growth region, leading to impressive cloud to ground lightning production. Most tropical cyclones have much lower lightning strike frequencies than Don.

• Wind Shear. Just enough wind shear from north winds more than 25,000 feet above the ground elongated Don’s core, with the heaviest weather well south of the center of the surface circulation. When wind shear is combined with dry air in the same regions, the slightly tilted core takes on the personality of a mesoscale convective complex, where thunderstorms cluster in a circular fashion.

• Cool Nearshore Waters. A tropical cyclone struggling to intensify requires only a slight disruption to bring it down. Prior to Don’s arrival along the South Texas coast, surf zone water temperatures had dipped into the 70s to around 80°F, courtesy of a prolonged period of southeast flow which brought cooler undersea waters to the surface. Small thunderstorm clusters, which need warm, humid, unstable air to maintain their updrafts, can be destroyed by even a small area of stable air. Radar showed rapid decay of heavy rain, while satellite trends showed warming of the highest clouds. At the same time, hundreds of lightning strikes faded to dozens, then to only a few. All in less than three hours.

• Did Time of Day Matter? What might have occurred had the thunderstorm cluster approached the coast at 4 AM rather than 4 PM? In the past, energy from tropical waves arriving during the pre dawn hours have set off torrential rains, which begin before daybreak and continue until noon or so near the coast. One reason for this may be the increased instability (warm humid conditions) over the Gulf compared with cooler land just prior to daybreak. Could Don have done likewise, maintained it’s core, and dumped between 2 and 4 inches of rain along with gusty winds, 12 hours earlier (or later)?

We are planning to be part of future research efforts to investigate reasons, known and unknown, for Don’s rapid death.

A table of precipitation, from highest to lowest, follows.