Wednesday 3 PM Tropical Update: Tracking Hurricane Francine as the storm approaches

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us as we continue our coverage of hurricane Francine. I'm Devin Bartolotta here with Katie Moore. We've been covering all of this all over the area as Francine makes her way in, we are awaiting official landfall, but we have been feeling the effects of the rain, the wind, the the storm surge for hours now. Yes, we are in the French quarter in our Rampart Street studios and we can hear the rain. It is pouring outside right now. It's been doing that on and off throughout the day as I'm sure you all are experiencing at home, you know, and that's everywhere from, you know, up in Hammond where my sister is all the way down to core where we've had reporters standing out in the rain and it was just really getting, getting going even as early as one o'clock this afternoon. I think some of those really outer bands of the storm started making their way through the metro area. And so we've been feeling the impacts of Francine all day long and it's only going to continue to get unfortunately worse from here. Yeah, you mentioned Core and that's where the wall just was approaching. Not that long ago, we've got Lily Cummings down in the Houma area and in that area there was a sustained, sustained winds at about 75 miles an hour. So definitely very windy. I think we clocked one at 90 in Coari, which is an indicator that it definitely is the outer eye wall making its way in. Uh, that was about an hour ago. Right, I believe. Yeah, about 30 minutes, 30 minutes ago. Um Well, we regardless, we, we really wanna just see where it is now. Of course. So let's go over to Alexa meteor Meteors, Alexa Trisler. Yeah. Yeah, that outer eye wall continuing to move on shore of a lower Terrebonne parish. So the eye wall is moving on shore. Now, the eye wall bringing those heavier downpours, the stronger storms and the hurricane force wind gusts for lower Terrebonne parish into Morgan City. Actually Morgan City in this region seeing a flash flood warning. So for the Morgan City area already dealing with some flash flooding as the outer eye wall starts to move on shore. So it looks like the eye of the storm will be moving in within the next couple of hours. So the worst of the weather is really, it's happening now, the heaviest of the rain is pushing into the region throughout the course of the afternoon. We'll continue to see these outer bands dump some good heavy rain and it comes in waves. Sometimes you get a break from the heavier downpours and then it picks right back up. Also the winds starting to really increase. But that is a look there coming into lower Terrebonne Parish, the northern part of the eye wall moving into our coastal spots. So we'll continue to track this as it moves inland. We've got the outer bands pushing in producing the heavy downpours. We will be dealing with some street flooding most likely across the area in a few spots, localized street flooding, certainly possible. So of course, you wanna stay off the roads the rest of today as the winds pick up as we see more rain this afternoon, street flooding. Definitely something you can bet on those heavier showers expanding to the north shore and into South Mississippi Slidell, seeing some heavy rain uh for our Mississippi Coast, seeing those heavier downpours pushing in with these outer bands and like we mentioned, there is that low chance for quick spin up rotating storm. So a quick spin up tornado possible. It is a low risk for that, but you can't rule it out as the outer bands move on shore. We know how that goes. You can get a quick brief tornado that, um, that is really um very low, low risk for that, but we saw some tornado warnings earlier for lower plains that was a few hours ago. We have not seen any other tornado warnings pop up, but we'll just be vigilant and watching to see if any of these storms can rotate, but so far just producing some heavy downpours winds really starting to pick up. We'll look at those winds at this point. So these are our wind gusts, gusts at 61 MPH just off the, uh, the mouth of the Mississippi River. So, for southwest past here, 61 mile per hour gusts just offshore of, uh, uh, lower lefou just offshore of Port Fouch. 48 mile per hour. Gusts. We've got this uh reading just offshore here. 61 mile per hour gusts. So right for our coastal spots, that's where the winds are really increasing. 40 to 60 mile per hour gusts just happening offshore of our uh coastline. Now, Eugene Island, 66 mile per hour, gusts Morgan City 49 MPH, Du lac, 49 MPH, immediate area. Seeing those gusts up to 35 MPH for Bell Chase, Grand Isle as we get into the lakefront, 40 mile per hour gusts right now. So the winds are picking up. We're seeing those gusts 25 to 3540 ish MPH for southeastern Louisiana. The strongest of the winds though are still offshore. So we're expecting the winds to continue to increase going into the next couple of hours, especially for lower Terrebonne Bayou Parishes. River Parishes will see the strongest of the winds getting into the late afternoon and into the evening hours as Francine moves inland, so we still have more hours of bad weather to get to. And as the winds pick up, this is when, you know, you may get some power outages across the region. So hopefully your power stays intact, but you might end up losing power tonight as the winds start to pick up this evening. So again, a closer look at those wind speeds are really starting to increase sustained winds for Southeast Louisiana up to 2025 MPH in a few spots, generally 10 to 15 on the North shore. But it is even starting to see gusts pick up for the North shore slide out gusting at 23 and then 39 at the lakefront. So today, that's really the big thing, the winds and the surge potential. That's what we'll be watching the rest of today through the afternoon into tonight as we get Francine moving inland in the next couple of hours. That's when we can see those hurricane force gusts for our lower tabone for Bayou Parishes, River Parishes. Even for the I 55 corridor late tonight, you may get a rogue gust at hurricane force and even for the metro area, maybe you get an isolated gust up to 70 or so MPH. So expecting the the very strong winds the rest of the afternoon to increase into tonight, make sure you have those devices charged, charged like we've been saying, have everything charged up your phone, your ipad, everything like that in case the power does go out. We'll be watching the heavy rain through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Some of us picking up around 4 to 6 inches of rain again. It just depends. So there can be some localized street flooding today. And plus we're watching the, the surge in the coastal flooding so we could have some standing water lasting into tonight into early tomorrow. So you want to avoid those flooded roadways don't go out and assess damage until you really get the ok. From, from the officials from uh people that are, you know, out assessing and seeing what's going on uh outdoors, like uh the local government officials will give you the, the ok when everything looks like, you know, you can be out and about and checking things out on the road. So I wanted to show you the wind field again because this is kind of an important graphic to show those tropical storm force winds in effect for basically the entire area as we go into the rest of tonight. We'll see those tropical storm force winds force the south shore even into the north shore. And South Mississippi probably won't see as high of a wind uh wind potential but still expecting for parts of our coastal Mississippi getting those tropical storm force winds late tonight. But the core of the storm packs those hurricane force winds, 74 plus mile per hour winds will be happening across Morgan City, possibly into Baton Rouge along the center line of the center or core of the storm. And even late tonight as the center continues to push inland parts of uh Tangipahoa Parish may be seeing those very strong winds, uh, up to 59 to 73 MPH sustained at, at times. So it's expecting very um elevated winds the rest of today. And so tonight, it's not till the overnight hours. We'll see things calm down as Francine moves inland and into South Mississippi, wind speeds will be decreasing in the overnight hours tomorrow morning, really quieting down. It may still just be a bit breezy for our North shore spots early tomorrow as this continues to push up to the north. But like we've been saying, it's not going to be in our area for that long. So that's really the silver lining is that this thing is going to be in and out of here and also look at this dry air kind of wrapping around Francine and as the dry air starts to wrap around, you may notice here on our water vapor imagery. And also I was looking at our satellite data, the southern side of the storm, the clouds are starting to kind of weaken a little bit and the showers are starting to weaken a little bit. So as this moves on shore it looks like rainfall intensity will probably come down later tonight. So it's, it's not like we're gonna be dealing with heavy rain all throughout the night. We've got the heavy showers. Now, the bands moving in now and the showers will continue into the early evening. But I think as we get to the mid middle of tonight or middle evening hours, mid evening, just after dinner time, some of those showers will start to kind of weaken and the intensity will go down because we have that drier air working in on the southern side of the system also that helps to keep the intensity of the system down. We've got the dry air and the shear all working in our favor. So that is something good to kind of note and, and highlight. Yes, we have some heavy showers now, but as we get into later this evening, so after dinner time, I think the rain really starts to wind down. So more heavy rain at times through the next several hours. And then we get later into tonight, those showers shift up to the north with that drier air we're working in behind it. And then early tomorrow, we're done with the rain. So as we get into the overnight rain passes up to the north, it's in Jackson, Mississippi. By early tomorrow morning, GFS kind of has a similar solution here going into the next few hours. We'll get the outer bands continuing to push in. But as the dry air works in around the system, I think we'll see less and less rain as we get into the middle evening, later evening hours tonight, the rain really starts to subside and overnight things quieting down. So that's a good thing tomorrow. We'll just be, you know, picking up the pieces. I, I can't think of a better expression to come up with this, but hopefully we'll have minimal damage. We'll just be kind of getting everything together tomorrow and we can put this behind us. Hopefully, we'll have minimal impacts from Francine the rest of today. So sustained winds again across southeast Louisiana picking up as we head into the afternoon, sustained tropical storm force winds possible the rest of today, especially into the evening and then hurricane force gusts possible for the metro area and particularly for our uh bayou and river parishes even into the north shore like Hammond mccomb can be seeing those strong wind gusts up to hurricane force gusts later tonight as Francine moves inland overnight, that's when our wind direction, wind direction changes rather comes in from the west and northwest and those winds come down around 10 to 15 MPH early tomorrow. And again, those winds mostly from the west northwest tomorrow can help push that water away and maybe help kind of alleviate some of the surge issues for our coastal spots tomorrow. So something to look forward to tomorrow as we uh look ahead to a more tranquil Thursday, Friday and into the weekend. No worries when it comes to the weather. So we talk about the wind being the biggest thing to look out for. Also the surge potential. Those numbers have not changed much anywhere from uh Port Fon westward. Still expecting up 5 to 10 ft of surge as the storm comes inland, 4 to 7 ft of surge for uh Grand Isle and points eastward to Venice. So for uh Barataria Bay, 4 to 7 ft of surge, Lake Bourne, Lake Pontchartrain eastward facing shorelines of Saint Bernard and Eastern Plains, 4 to 6 ft possible. And that continues into South Mississippi as well. And then for Lake Marria, maybe 3 to 5 ft of surge. So like I've been mentioning before, even if the rain stops later tonight, we could still have some standing water from the rain. The fresh water flooding is possible. We'll continue to see those big puddles and ponding on the roadways through early tomorrow. Plus, we could have some water still kind of elevated from the surge into early tomorrow. So that's why you want to take it easy on the roads. You don't want to go out and about early tomorrow until you get the ok from, you know, government officials that everything looks good and everything looks, you know, safe to traverse because we could still be dealing with some standing water through early tomorrow. It will take time for the water to kind of come down and recede. And like we mentioned, the North Shore rivers will probably be running pretty high tomorrow into Friday. It'll take the weekend for those numbers to come down. So North Shore River is expected to maybe go into a minor flood stage tomorrow into uh early Friday. So a closer look at those winds for the storm. The strongest winds again packed into that eye and the eye wall again moving on shore of lower Terrebonne Parish now, and the eye is probably going to be moving into near Terrebonne Parish, that's vicinity within the next couple of hours, within the next hour and a half two hours, we'll probably see the center of the eye move on shore, so maybe a little bit sooner. Uh at least the eye itself can be moving on shore within the next two hours or or less. And then, you know, we'll take some time for the entire eye to complete the inland approach. So we've got a few more hours of rough weather. Certainly the strongest of the winds are still going to be ahead of us the rest of the afternoon into tonight. And it's not until overnight. We'll start to see those wind speeds really subside. But the core of the storm can bring those hurricane force gusts for the Bayou parishes, river parishes and even parts of the North Shore, Hammond Tangipahoa Parish, seeing those strong wind gusts into tonight. So can't rule out maybe some down trees, some power outages like we've been mentioning something. It's certainly an expectation that, that you should have. Hopefully we'll get lucky, we'll luck out and it won't be so bad wind gusts maximum wind gust forecast. Like we are already seeing like that oil platform just offshore of Coari reporting a wind gust of 90 MPH. The the the port is a little bit higher off the ground, so it is a little bit elevated. The reading is coming not from the surface, a few like about 100 ft off the ground. So, but still wind gusts near 90 MPH just offshore of Coari. That's what we have 80 to 90 mile per hour plus gusts expected for lower uh tabone uh for uh parts of Marsh Island. So Marsh Island down to Morgan City uh points west, we'll be seeing 80 to 90 mile per hour gusts. And then as we get into this evening, we could see 70 to 90 mile per hour gusts possible. And the the worst case scenario for HOA. So we'll call it 70 to 80 plus. I think 90 would be on the really high end of the scale for HOA and then for our river parishes, anywhere from 50 to 70 plus uh mile per hour gusts for our river parishes and that extends into parts of the north shore later tonight. As Francine moves inland, the farther east you go I think our wind gusts will be a little bit lower, maybe 4060 to mile, 40 to 50 plus 60 being the worst case for slid. L uh, parts of the New Orleans Metro may get an isolated gusts up to 70 plus MPH. So you can't rule that out. Farther east. You go into south Mississippi talking maybe 2040 mile per hour gusts right along the coastline. So the farther east you are away from the center of the storm, the wind gusts won't be as high but still expecting these tropical storm force winds throughout the rest of today into tonight. Rainfall totals like we've been mentioning can really vary quite a bit anywhere from 3 to 4 inches of rain, possible area wide. It's just hard to say exactly where the, the heaviest showers set up because, you know, when the bands come in, it's hard to predict exactly. All right, where we'll see the most rain, but, you know, you can't rule out street flooding throughout the course of today. That's why you have to definitely stay off the roads if you can hurricane Francine. As of the latest update from the national hurricane center still has sustained winds at 90 MPH. Gusts at the center 100 and 15 MPH. So it is, it is impressive category one storm. It is now moving to the northeast at 17 MPH. It is 100 and 15 miles southwest of the city of New Orleans. So it is getting closer and this red box here indicates we are under a tornado watch for the rest of today because again, low risk for that, but any of these bands that come in may have the ability to rotate. So we'll watch that in addition to everything else. We're watching the rest of today, the heavy rain and really the, the strong winds being the biggest thing and the surge of course, pushing all that water inland. Unfortunately, today, and probably through early tomorrow, it will take some time for the water to go down throughout the course of tomorrow. So landfall expected very shortly by this evening, the center of the storm should be inland and then we'll see those impacts the rest of tonight. But again, we'll be out here soon early tomorrow morning. It'll already be near Jackson, Mississippi and just continuing on its path northward, bringing parts of the Mississippi Valley, some, some much needed rain across parts of the Midwest this weekend. So it'll be in and out here before we even know it. This will hopefully be a distant memory for us in the coming years. The storm seven day forecast. Also, we've got good things to look forward to this weekend tomorrow. Yes, it will be a little breezy, especially on the north shore early in the day, but we'll be on a drying trend will stay dry this weekend. Actually, a little less humid too with some dry air working in behind Francine. Like we've been showing you it's not gonna feel as muggy outside. So if we have to, you know, do the clean up efforts, we have to, you know, go outside, cut down some trees and do what we need to do. It won't feel as oppressive outside. That's another good thing to kind of focus on temperature is also not bad, mid to upper eighties through this weekend into early next week and even through early next week, looking at a quiet stretch of weather to enjoy after this rough Wednesday and we will enjoy it. Can't wait. We just have to get through today.