Tropical update: Francine nears Louisiana coast

All right. Hello to you. I'm Fox 26, meteorologist for Misha eight. It is time to track the tropics. And of course, we've got a whopper of a system developing in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm talking about Francine, soon to be a hurricane right now, tropical Storm Francine. But of course, yesterday, Francine became our sixth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. Of course, we've had Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debbie, Arnesto, and now Francine, which is a strong tropical storm. But it likely will become a hurricane very soon and head towards the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Next name on the list would be Gordon, then Helene and Isaac. Hopefully we won't have those anytime soo, but of course all eyes are on Francine for the moment, so let's get right to the latest with Francine. You can see that it is kind of starting to pull away from that northeastern Mexican coast and from South Texas. Just a bit. It is finally made that shift or turn to the northeast. That's what we were waiting for, because of course, if it kept moving due north, it will roll right over Houston and similar to what Hurricane Beryl did. But we expected it to make that curve or that turn to the northeast, and it's finally starting to do so. And you can see that counterclockwise swirl. You can see that eyewall that continues to develop pressure with. The last update did drop just a little bit about one Millibar. So usually when pressure drops eventually the wind speeds will increase. So we are expecting Francine to become a hurricane. Likely by this afternoon or early this evening. You can see all of those rain bands associated with it. We've got another big cluster of rain already rolling into a big chunk of Louisiana, so it's already starting to get messy with weather deteriorating for parts of the Texas Gulf Coast. We've had some downpours here, but especially for the Louisiana Gulf Coast. All right. This is a look at the latest coordinates. The latest track for Tropical Storm Francine. This is as of the latest 4 p.m. advisory. And we're still talking about a 65 mile per hour tropical storm. You can see that it is moving now to the northeast at ten miles per hour. So not only has it shifted from moving to the north to the northeast, but it's picked up a little bit of speed. It was moving around 5 to 6 to seven miles per hour, but now up to ten miles per hour. So that northeasterly track will take it kind of like this. It's going to take it away from the southeast Texas coast. Of course, we will still have some impacts in our coastal communities, but no direct hit. Thank goodness. Expected here. So at this point, 65 mile per hour winds moving northeast at ten miles per hour likely to become a category one hurricane either this evening or tonight. And then it will be very close to making landfall right around the Louisiana Gulf Coast. This is going to be tomorrow around 1:00 pm, likely a 90 mile per hour powerful category one hurricane. Now yesterday's forecast did have Francine strengthening to a category two 100 mile per hour hurricane before landfall. But they've come off of the wind speeds a little bit, so it's not forecast to become a category two. It's still not out of the question. It's still possible. But right now, the official national hurricane track does have this likely probably just to the south southwest of Lafayette, Louisiana, tomorrow afternoon. As a powerful category one hurricane of course, after landfall, it's no longer over that super warm, super deep water of the Gulf of Mexico. And that kind of gives it that fuel or that power. So once it loses that of course, it does gradually start to weaken. So I think it's a tropical storm as we go into early Thursday morning, as it pushes farther north into Louisiana, and then as it pushes farther inland into parts of the Mississippi River Valley and Midwest towards the end of the week, it's continuing to weaken down to a tropical depression, then a remnant low as it approaches Saint Louis by this weekend. So it will be long gone by this weekend. But for now, we definitely are going to have to deal with at least some effects from Francine. But at least things look a lot better than they did a few days ago when Houston was right in the middle of that cone of uncertainty. Of course, that meant we had a shot for getting a direct hit, but this system has been kind of tracking or shifting farther to the east day by day. So it's taking it away from the southeast Texas coast. So super good news for Houston. Super great news for Beaumont, but not so great news for Lafayette Louisiana. Baton Rouge and even New Orleans. It looks like new Orleans impacts are increasing because the system keeps shifting. These are the spaghetti model plots. So different computer models. And look at this. Sometimes a lot of them disagree with each other, but it looks like they are kind of all in agreement that this is going to roll right through that middle Louisiana Gulf Coast. And New Orleans will be to the right of that center of circulation. Most likely. That's the dirty side of the hurricane. And that is not the side to be on. That means a ton of heavy rain, likely a tornado threat, a storm surge threat. So not good news for New Orleans. Not good news for Lafayette, not good news for Baton Rouge. Big problems for the Louisiana Gulf Coast over the next 24 to 36 hours. Locally, things are looking a lot better for us. Yes, we will get impacts, but here's what you need to know. It's not going to be anything like barrel. It's not going to be that severe. Maybe a little wind, a little rain, especially down around the coast. But no 100 mile per hour winds. And we're not expecting over a foot of rain to fall from this system. All right. We do still have a coastal flood warning though, down around Lake Jackson, League city, Galveston, down to Palacios, Port Lavaca. That is where we could have some of that storm surge. Maybe one, two, potentially up to three feet of storm surge impacting our coastal communities so that means that we could have some of that water piling up right along the coast onto some of those roads. Beaches may not be accessible, so it's of course, it's not a great time to head to the beaches because it's not going to be great weather. The water is going to be super choppy. There's a very high risk for rip currents, and there will be the potential for that coastal flooding. Here's a little bit of good news, though. With this system continuing to track a little bit farther to the east, our area, our coastal spots at least have been taken out of that tropical storm watch. So we did have that yellow area right along our coastal spots. That was that tropical storm watch that has been removed as of 4:00 pm by the National Hurricane Center. So good news for us. But if you just travel a little bit to the east, you can see that tropical storm warning and then hurricane warnings for the majority of the Louisiana Gulf