Tropical update: Watching PTC6 in the Gulf of Mexico

Good evening, Ikh A 11 meteorologist Kim Castro. It is Sunday, September 8th and here's your tropical update. After a very quiet weekend, we are going to see things intensify quite quickly. The National Hurricane Center calling attention to this potential tropical cyclone six, which is expected to become our next named storm and not just that it could become our next hurricane too. So during the overnight hours, that's when it's expected to gain enough organization for it to become a tropical storm. Notice, it already has that 50 mile an hour wind that would give it that tropical storm criteria. However, it's still not organized and that is going to be the factor that divulges where it's going to go and how quickly it's going to get there. So for now, the National Hurricane Center takes us out to Tuesday at 1 p.m. And what we know now is that it's going to intensify 65 mile an hour winds from there on out notice the time stamp drops off, but we've got the heads up that this could certainly develop into a hurricane and the cone of uncertainty is placed from Houston towards Lake Jackson. Excuse me. Lake Charles and then getting closer and closer towards New Orleans. This is accurate two thirds of the time by the way. So this could very well shift towards the west or towards the east. If it shifts further towards the east, that would be a better scenario for southeast Texas. If it moves a little bit further west, that would be a bad scenario. Why is that? Because then we, we would be on the dirty side of the storm. So right now, what I need you to do is to monitor the forecast. So watch it at least twice a day in the morning and in the evening, because now we're in a really close window of time and we're gonna see pretty rapid changes, especially once we start to see uh that system become a little bit better developed. I'm gonna show you one model and one model run. Don't get married to the idea of where this model is showing us that the storm will go. This is only a possibility and there are several possibilities out right now. So I'll take you through time and I'll stop the clock right there, Tuesday at 630. So now we've got a center that's defined and we got some outer bands that are pushing towards the coastline. So that's why the window to watch is Tuesday through Thursday. So I think we could have some heavy rain impacts on Tuesday. Why I think the impacts peak on Wednesday is because that's when the system will either track further towards the north and those inner wall, uh, heavier bands could be sitting on top of us or the system could track a little bit further towards the northeast. And this is what this particular model run is showing us. So that's Wednesday at one o'clock, this could move fast. I'm wanting you to watch the forecast and be mindful between Tuesday and Thursday because we're not exactly sure how fast the system's gonna move just yet. I think again, most of the impacts are gonna peak early Wednesday morning. However, if it stalls out a little while longer, we could shift that time frame. So for now Tuesday to Thursday with Wednesday being the most important day and notice if this does shift a little bit further towards the east. Best case scenario, we just get some outer bands here on the more clean side of the storm, the nicer side of the storm, the dirty side impacts would be well off uh into Louisiana pushing towards uh Mississippi. So quadrant risks are crucial. So the positioning of this storm in just a few 100 miles will make a tremendous difference. If we do see that pushing closer towards Louisiana and we get the left side of this potentially hurricane, we could see some winds, maybe the possibility of an isolated tornado here and there not a ton of rain low impacts. If however, we see the system track continue to push north instead of veering towards the northeast and it sits over Houston. Well, then we could see higher impacts and some of those impacts would come by way of some heavy widespread rain. So there's this is an area one widespread rain along the coastline on average 4 to 6 inches. However, some spots could push up towards 12 inches of rain on average Harris County 2 to 4 inches. However, we could see those total skirt a little bit closer towards the six maybe eight inch range. Scenario two, which pushes it into Louisiana would mean this coastal impact still present high tides, maybe some coastal flooding. But for the most part, far less rain and far less impacts Harris County, half an inch an inch of rain. That would be typical summer day for us. It wouldn't be much of an issue in terms of the wind field. The probability right now of tropical storm force impacts for Houston is trending on the lower side notice for the coastline and it's about a 5050. So again, something to just keep an eye out right now though the National Hurricane Center is expecting this to become a category one hurricane, could this change? Could it become a category two? It's possible and that will be determined. Uh once we see that well defined center and we see what kind of characteristics it's picking up. It's certainly in a favorable environment to intensify fast. What we do know is that we are expecting Francine here in the very short term. So, prepare, treat this as a hurricane that we've been talking about for a while. It's difficult when we have a system that has been meandering in the Gulf. And then all of a sudden it starts to get tropical characteristics and all of a sudden it starts intensifying. Usually we get more of a heads up because it's coming in from, you know, the Atlantic and then the Caribbean and then, you know, so yes, this is a shorter window to prepare. However, we still have time. We've got this evening, we've got all of Monday to prepare. By Tuesday. I want you to have all of these supplies ready. So you run in the mill food and water, nonperishable, your medications, your batteries cash on hand in case we do lose power again. For Houston, your weather impact alert days, Tuesday through Thursday, we could be looking at widespread heavy rain. What you need to do is check back in. So I've given you all the information that I know right now, I will know more once the system gets more organized. So once it becomes from a tropical cyclone six to a tropical storm to then potentially a hurricane. So for now, be aware that we're gonna do a 180 Texas turn around. It was a sunny calm weekend and the middle of the week will look a lot different. We'll keep you updated on social media and on kau.com.