Monday 1 PM Tropical Update: Francine expected to hit Louisiana as a hurricane

Hey, good afternoon. It's just before one o'clock here. We're tracking tropical storm Francine. You're watching us all of our digital platforms here with this update. Uh The storm has strengthened some, we are up to 60 MPH this afternoon as the storm still sitting down here, north northwest movement only at five MPH and still about 450 miles away from Louisiana. So we've still got a solid two days before this thing gets to Louisiana. Now, a reminder, the 1 p.m. update does not have a track update that won't happen until four o'clock. So this is the same track as our 10 a.m. update, but still bringing it into Louisiana by Wednesday afternoon, into Wednesday evening, making landfall. And right now that cone extends all across South Louisiana from Lake Charles to New Orleans. It's centered right now over Vermilion Bay in Marsh Island, that would be just south of Lafayette and you can see its landfall is there as a category one storm. So if you're making preparations, we always say make preparations a category higher just in case. So planning on a category two, especially down here into where the Echa Aai runs into the Gulf Saint Mary Parish, New Iberia Lafayette and surrounding areas. Now, we are supposed to, we're likely gonna be on the east side of this storm. So regardless, we're expecting impacts here in Southeast Louisiana and even South Mississippi with some rain there. Now this is gonna be moving. So by Wednesday afternoon and evening, making landfall by Thursday morning, up around Jackson and then the next day on Friday, it's already well to our north up around Memphis. So this will luckily not stall out over us. Now, let's talk about the steering currents and what's ahead of this thing? It's fairly straightforward. We've got a ridge of high pressure that's extending over the eastern Gulf. There's a weakness in the ridge on the western side of the Gulf. That's what France seen is gonna be riding around and why it's moving north today and tomorrow, why does it make this northeast turn into Louisiana into our area? Well, there's a trough, digging down and these upper level winds are gonna act to pull it this direction. So once it actually gets into the northern Gulf, it will fill these stronger winds coming in and that's what's gonna turn it into Louisiana. And you have to imagine all this has to do with timing on exactly when this thing turns. And that's a very minor detail that honestly, you just can't forecast with any accuracy. So, Wobbles are gonna make a tremendous difference in impacts felt and these are things that you almost just have to wait and see. So if you're in South Louisiana, especially from Lafayette to New Orleans, you are preparing for that category one storm to make landfall. Now, luckily it's not in a pristine environment, meaning there is gonna be some wind shear in its path and some dry air. Fortunately though, that doesn't really kick in until Wednesday as it's making landfall. So it will have today and especially tomorrow to intensify. So what I'm showing you here is one of our high resolution models. This is showing you where the showers and storms are forming with the clouds. These are upper level winds. So that's wind shear and you can see there's not really any wind shear over it today or tomorrow. That's why we think it's gonna go through most of its intensification into tomorrow. Tuesday. Now, what's interesting as it starts to make this turn and fills these winds, that's wind shear. We will hopefully start to see some dry air get pulled up in it coming out of Texas and that should either act to limit its intensity intensification and then hopefully eventually start to weaken it. Now, unfortunately, that may not happen until it's right near our coast. So it may strengthen on Tuesday, strengthen right up until Wednesday and then limit itself or cap itself off and then start to weaken once it moves inland and really starts to feel that wind shear and you could just see how it gets shredded by that wind shear as it moves inland on Wednesday into more so Wednesday night and early Thursday. So as the storm strengthens today and tomorrow, that is really crucial because that's gonna determine how vulnerable it is to that wind shear and dry air, stronger storms gonna last a bit longer as it makes landfall. We're hoping it's not that strong. Now, we do have hurricane watches up for a big portion of our bayou parishes, Terrebonne Lafoe and um lower Jefferson and lower plains. You are under a hurricane watch right now back towards Saint Mary Parish under a hurricane watch and the hurricane watch goes all the way up to just shy of the Baton Rouge Metro Lafayette under a hurricane watch. We've got tropical storm watches for the north shore, tropical storm watches for the metro area, including the river parishes and we've got a tropical storm watch for coastal areas in Hancock County. Now, here's my rough estimate on what I think the wind gusts will likely be. These are probably the highest wind gusts you see with the current track and the current intensity of a cat. 1 may be nearly a cat two. Your strongest winds obviously closer to where the core comes inland Marsh Island, New Iberia, getting into portions of Saint Mary Parish. You could see winds gusting 70 to 80 miles an hour right off the coast. 80 to 100 miles an hour. Now, in Houma, Terrebonne, uh, going up into Lafoe and up to Baton Rouge, 50 to 70 mile per hour, winds are possible. And then you could see your winds begin to decrease as you head east. We, I'm talking maybe 30 to 50 mile per hour wind gust in the New Orleans Metro and for the north shore 20 to 40 off towards the south Mississippi. Now, this is all dependent on the track. So if this track decides it wants to come a little further east, or the storm simply wobbles a little closer our direction, then we could see some of these stronger winds approach our area. And also if the storm comes in a little bit stronger, these numbers may go up. So this is something we're certainly watching here in these wobbles really do matter. But right now, biggest win packs right there, we're making landfall near Marsh Island, Vermilion Bay and back through the Echa Alaya Basin. We also have storm surge watches. We are expecting a rise in water basically everywhere in our area, especially down here along the coast where that center is gonna be coming on shore. Here's what we're looking at with storm surge some fairly impressive totals east of the center, most likely 5 to 10 ft 10 ft closer to the center, 5 ft as you get further away. Now, Grand Isle be Terri Bay, we're forecasting 4 to 7 ft that's on the west side of the West Bank of Plains, East Bank of Plains, 2 to 4 ft. Uh Shell Beach and the Lake Bourne, South Mississippi, 2 to 4 ft and then 2 to 4 ft is what we're expecting for Lake Pontchartrain and Lake M. Paul may mostly up on the north shore into tangy where those winds are getting pushed to the north. We probably won't have too much inundation on the south shore as the winds are never really expected to be out of the south. Here's a closer look, your storm surge, you can see there 5 to 10 ft most likely down here into where the center is. Now, once again, it's all dependent on the track. If this track tracks a little closer to Morgan City, we may see some of those higher totals push into Terrebonne Parish, vice versa. If the storm track shifts a little further back towards Cameron Parish, we may see those higher totals push back to the west as well. So these minor deviations in the track will have a big impact on not only winds but also the surge fall totals. Now, luckily this thing's moving with that being said it's a tropical storm, maybe even a hurricane. It's gonna bring some heavy tropical rains to the area that are gonna last several, several hours. So it will start to add up. They widespread 3 to 6 inches spread out into Wednesday evening and into Wednesday night. But there will probably be a couple isolated spots. You can see their models depicting maybe 5 to 10 inches of rain in very isolated areas. But I wouldn't say the flooding risk is off the charts with this one uh as it will be moving. So that's the good news with this. Once again timing you got today, you got tomorrow to get some preps done. You are gonna be seeing some showers at times. Looks like we'll start to see more of those outer bands roll in throughout Wednesday making landfall Wednesday, late afternoon evening. The timing is still a bit tricky there. So I want you to take that with a grain of salt. But later Wednesday into Wednesday night is like when we have more rain and those stronger wind gusts along with serge, luckily it begins to clear out and then as we head into the weekend here, we'll get that mess out of here. We have some pretty nice weather. So our next big update will be at 4 p.m. Chris will have that for you. This was the intermediary uh advisory just updating the winds. It is slightly stronger now, but the next track update that will come out at four o'clock and then the next track after that will be at 10 p.m. Thanks for joining me.