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About half of the San Antonio area is expected to receive rain from Bertha as the storm weakens into a tropical depression over the region.
The National Weather Service reports only about a tenth of an inch of rain is expected in the area between around 10 p.m. Thursday and 4 a.m. Friday morning.
The last of the light rain should be out of the area by the morning commute to work on Friday, forecasters said.
Bertha will kick up some minor wind gusts of 20 miles per hour on Thursday and Friday, but the San Antonio area could use a bit of a breeze with temperatures lately in excess of 100 degrees and even higher heat indices.
Much of the Hill Country began drying out this week after heavy rains and flooding, especially around Uvalde and Kerrville, where many residents were forced to leave their homes.
The Frio and Nueces Rivers in deep South Texas remained in flood stage on Thursday morning.
There was flooding reported in Cotulla along with some voluntary evacuations as the Nueces River rose and crested nearly 29 feet and is falling. It should drop to 16.3 feet by Tuesday morning. Flood stage is at 15-feet.
The National Weather Service reports it will take days for the water to recede at Cotulla due to the flat nature of the coastal plains. And it will take a long time for floodwaters to move downstream.
Cory Mottice, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Office in Corpus Christi, says not only is the flat terrain slowing the floodwaters, so is the dry terrain from a drought that has stretched into several years that is soaking some of it up.
"It's going from Cotulla, on the Nueces, down to McMullen County, south of Tilden there," he said of the floodwaters. It's four and a half days to go across not even two full counties. So, it's very slow moving and so they have lots of time to prepare."
There have been no deaths or injuries and only a couple of high-water rescues, largely due to the slow-moving nature of the floodwaters.
The Nueces River at Tilden, downstream from Cotulla, is expected to rise above flood stage, which is 14 feet, on Saturday morning. It will rise to 22.5 feet by early Monday, and additional rises are possible thereafter.
The Frio River at Tilden reached a flood stage of 29 feet on Thursday morning. Numerous homes were flooded. The river is expected to fall below flood stage Sunday afternoon and continue falling to 11 feet by Tuesday morning.
Mottice said the flooding is good news for two key sources of water for deep South Texas and the lower coast. Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi are expected to see significant increases in their water levels that were looking very dire this summer.
