FIRST ALERT WEATHER

e e and good Sunday morning everyone meteorologist Steve kaara here once again uh giving you an update from home because it looks like it's going to be a busy week ahead so we're tracking what is labeled as invest 91l in the Gulf of Mexico and starting to get some increasing confidence that there will be impacts here in Louisiana now the exact detail details on those impacts are still very much up in the air but at least uh some impacts if not significant in some areas so we wanted to give you an update on what we know right now what we don't know and what you should be planning for at this point so let's kind of walk through uh some of some of the graphics this morning and kind of talk you through it all right so here's the satellite view in the Gulf of Mexico this morning the enhanced infrared satellite if you will so I I think most of you are used to looking at this where see the uh the shades of uh the orange and uh the maroon and the white those are the colder Cloud tops higher up in the atmosphere so certainly uh pretty unsettled here in the Western and Northern Gulf of Mexico albeit nothing that's really come together just yet but um a lot of thunderstorm activity down there right now and we do think we're headed in the direction of some development uh I did want to point out um as we look at this give me a second um we do have that cool front that has uh dropped South you know if you've been outside today in south Louisiana not letting me draw it for some reason but um that has moved on through it's kind of a complex setup because we had low pressure that was Meandering along our coast and the coast of Texas this past week kind of interacting with a cool front tropical wave coming into the southern Gulf but all of this mess expected to start congealing there in the southwestern Gulf the bay cichi over the next day or so the hurricane Hunters are scheduled to investigate it uh this afternoon think they're scheduled to leave buuy at about one o'clock um probably not going to find a whole lot just yet is my suspicion on that but we'll see what they report back we're still kind of in the early stages of this although we do think probably going to have a tropical depression within the next day or so here's the visible satellite Loop and the visible gives us a little better look at what's going on underneath the hood if you will a little bit lower in the atmosphere so as we look at this we are seeing already some hints of some broad turning down in this area so that's kind of where we'll be focusing in the short term to see if some low pressure uh can get going which we we do think it will there's already low pressure but will a system start to organize will circulation start to develop and looks like that is likely all right so it's now the 8th of September historically the climatological peak of hurricane season is the 10th of September and while the Atlantic's been awfully quiet starting to see some signs of life not only here in the Gulf of Mexico got two other systems out in the Atlantic with decent chances of development uh one that's uh now up to 60% chance another right behind at 50% so we'll keep an eye on those but obviously our Focus right now is what's going on close to home in the Gulf of Mexico the Hurricane Center has continued to incre increase development odds now up to 80% the next two days 90% uh the next seven days but uh this thing will probably already move back Inland within seven days we really focused on the next several days all right so let's take a look at some of the computer models what they have to say and what you'll see here where the area of low pressure is kind of been initialized and that's the tricky part here in the early stages when we're still in the four formative stages of a system there's a lot of uncertainty you have to take the models with a grain of salt until we actually get a welldeveloped center and something that congeals there's going to be some error in there because we need to really ultimately see where that low pressure center develops to have a good idea of where it's going to end up so this is just kind of a rough estimate of where something may be developing but again until that really congeals until we get a well- defined Center you got to take these model runs with at least a little grain of salt understand they're going to move back and forth that windshield wiper effect so I did want to give you a look at the general idea though um I thought I had a pause in here let me back this up real quick so what you'll see come on computer there we go uh initially so that is Tuesday afternoon so it starts in the southwestern Gulf Bay cichi and may actually kind of move Northwest initially uh as it does so gets awfully close to the coast of northern Mexico and South Texas let something to keep an eye on the short term you know it's not out of the question depending on where this ultimately develops that it sneaks Inland a little bit and maybe a little bit uh sooner than expected but right now that's the best estimate the computer here is lagging a little bit sorry I'm trying to move this all right so here we are by Wednesday evening and you can see a general model con census that it's just off the coast of Southeast Texas at that point in time although you do have a model run or two it's a little bit farther east and then most of our model guidance come on computer does imply a threat to Louisiana anywhere from Southeast Texas into south Louisiana so as we eventually look at now that you know the time stamp show on Saturday let me back this up a bit and show you we're looking at most likely right now any po poal landfall being late Wednesday or early Thursday so you see right now uh that's 8:30 Thursday morning uh and as we get closer to landfall there is a bit more of a spread that shows up so that's not unusual and again until we get something congealing um you're going to see these lines in general probably bounce back and forth a little bit run to run so try not to get locked into any model run it's human nature I don't crit you know some meteorologists like to beat up people for looking at models I say go look at them just understand the uncertainty all right they are going to move around so um just understand that we're early in the process here so you're going to see some of that uh movement around all right so in terms of intensity uh these are model forecasts of intensity uh as you see the green shading on this plot from tropical tidbits and Dr Levi Cen uh that's in essence where models are forecasting for it to be tropical storm intensity you see one or two lines up there in the yellow that's a category one hurricane um at times some of the model guidance has said that a category one hurricane is not off the board and I think that's best to prepare we always tell people to prepare for one category above what is forecast so I would think uh just have in your mind that potential of a category one hurricane impacting the northern Gulf Coast even though the majority of our guidance right there uh shows us as tropical storm intensity so if we do get a tropical storm which appears to be a pretty good bet at this time uh Francine is the next name up so that's what we'll be looking for all right so let me give you a couple of individual model runs again there's some meteorologists that aren't going to do this and I and I understand the arguments against but I like to do this to show you the range of possibilities right don't try to take any of these individual models literally but I think it's okay to show them and give people an idea what the uncertainty is and what some of the different scenarios are so here's the European model um these are forecast wind gust now keep in mind when we classify tropical systems whether it's depression storm hurricane that is based off of sustained winds gusts are always going to be higher than sustained um but as you look at this map where once you see that trans transition from blue to green once you get into the green that's essentially tropical storm Force gust and then if you get into shades of purple at any point in time you're looking at Hurricane Forest gust so here's what the European model does uh we'll animate this out it's going to run a little bit slowly and what you see here is in the short term it doesn't have this organizing very quickly you don't see anything real obvious showing up right so now we pause at Wednesday morning and the European is not only a bit weaker than some other other model guidance it's a bit slower so Wednesday morning it basically has it just east or southeast of Brownsville Texas doesn't have anything that's terribly well organized at that point in time now as we advance it it kind of takes it up the coast of Texas here and as our model runs uh ends Thursday morning it's got a system that doesn't look all that strong uh maybe just offshore Corpus Christie so the model run ending before Daybreak Thursday and it it kind of hints at maybe a tropical depression at Best in that model now let me give you a look at the graph model uh this is a high resolution model you will mostly only see this from broadcast Outlets uh it's an a model developed by IBM and many of the broadcast stations we contract uh our data through IBM so you'll see this uh mostly on Broad Outlets uh now as I get ready to show you this two things number one you'll see that this run is much more aggressive than the European uh number two the graph in recent years generally speaking has done pretty well with tropical systems number three though as I look at this my suspicion is is that this model run might be a little too aggressive but we need to consider this as maybe the high-end potential okay so we showed you the European which is kind of there's your your floor and the graph might be an idea of the ceiling again I like to show a range of possibilities so we understand the potential that's on the board so the graph has this organizing much more quickly I think you can see that right even if you're not a trained meteorologist so by Tuesday morning it's got what pretty clearly appears to be a tropical storm in the uh Southwestern Gulf so that's 7: a.m. too Tuesday now as we advance this with time it shows it continuing to intensify by Wednesday morning it's got a tropical storm if not a hurricane the other thing I note on this is it shows the Windfield expanding growing in size which is obviously not something we want to see uh because if something like that happens then you're talking about a larger area impacted regardless of exactly where the center comes ashore so the graph model only goes out about 72 hours that's the end of the model run there as it's uh farther offshore of Texas than the European and certainly much stronger than the European and let me see if I can play this back one more time the other thing you'll note is initially as this kind of moves North and North Northwest we'll pause again on Tuesday toward the end of the model run you start to see more of that hook to the right did you catch that so again here in Louisiana regardless of the exact it appears to be in almost certainty that parts of Louisiana are going to be dealing with impacts but we've got to kind of get a better handle on things wait for a center to get together and then some of those details will become a little more clear all right here's the updated rainfall Outlook from the weather prediction center next seven days so right now basically for most of our viewing area in Southeast Louisiana boy his computer is just running slow this morning trying to tell a straight um it's showing three to five inches of rain okay three to five inches of rain on average as you get Lafayette to Lake Charles it's got some five to seven inch kind of in that lighter shade of orange and then seven to 10 along the coast and offshore you know if there's one bit of good news with the system as it stands right now uh most guidance is in agreement as it heads northward and gets into the northern G probably going to start moving faster so we don't see any indication of this thing really slowing down stalling you know I keep getting the question and I see people and I totally understand that the trauma of 2016 people keep asking about 2016 I don't see anything that indicates anything close to 2016 okay it's not to say we couldn't have some flood issues and some heavy rainfall it's always a threat with a tropical system right but nothing to indicate the magnitude of a 2016 so let's let's make sure we're clear about that so to talk a little more about that flood risk the weather prediction center now starting to kind of outline that so as soon as Tuesday they have areas basically along and south of I 10 and i12 under a two out of four slight risk of flooding by Wednesday that is area wide and then by Thursday you'll see how that two out of four shifts to basically Baton Rouge northward so that kind of Clues you in how quickly this is expected to be moving so primary greatest impacts probably Wednesday into early Thursday if things hold this forecast right now and then things potentially improving pretty quickly through the day on Thursday as it lifts northward and Inland again that's one of the encouraging signs is that the forward speed looks to be uh pretty healthy as this approaches the Gul Coast all right so let's talk about what's going to be steering this I got this a little bit yesterday uh but let's talk about it again a key factor here is going to be this Ridge of high pressure that is currently centered over the Western Atlantic so watch the trend with that high pressure it builds Westward into the Gulf of Mexico so here we are on Monday and you know we've got some streamlines on this graphic but remembering that the flow around high pressure is clockwise you see what's going on there right so in the western Gulf essentially the steering flow is south to North around that area of high pressure that's why anything that's there in the western or Southwestern Gulf is going to tend to want to move northward and then as we get to Tuesday uh that high pressure center still over the Eastern Gulf and let let me point out something real quick it's subtle this little blip of blue that's in essence this is the European model that's where the European shows our low pressure center at that point in time and then as we get Tuesday and Wednesday There's also um uh a little bit of a a disturbance dropping south over the Southern Plains that should help to pick this up and steer it North and Northeast and that's part of the reason it'll be it should be moving at a pretty good clip too so that's the quick look at what the steering pattern is and I don't see a ton of uncertainty in the steering pattern itself you know what needs to be resolved is a where when does this low pressure center actually come together where do that happen and that'll kind of dictate a lot of where it ends up all right before we wrap up let's enjoy a beautiful Sunday man feels nice outside doesn't it right now that's a sky9 view looking back at Tiger Stadium 84 in Baton Rouge currently still have some spots checking in in the upper 70s all right uh let's do this I am up real quick and as I do that uh if anybody that's on Faceook Facebook if you have any quick questions try to answer one or two of those before we wrap up I was trying to give you an update before those of you that want to go watch the Saints game here starting that noon uh you can see I got my my Saints gear on candy says do you feel it would will become major no there's nothing to indicate that right now so as we kind of walk through um most guidance shows a tropical storm is most likely but a lowend category one hurricane certainly is within the realm of possibility that's the best estimate right now uh Britney asked can we expect school closures as parents I would say have that have that thought in your head uh there's nothing announced on that I wouldn't expect anything announced for the next couple of days but if this plays out as it looks like it it will uh maybe in that Wednesday Thursday time frame might be looking at some closures we'll see but I would I'd be ready for that as a parent why do we use European models in North America all right fair question so we we use all sorts of model guidance um European Center for meteorology they produce what we call the European model the GFS model is a produced here in America uh but we look at one called the UK met which is produced in the UK the Germans have a model called icon that we will look at historically um with weather in general European model is tended to be the best in general terms um but that doesn't always apply with tropical systems and that varies system to system um but that's one of the reasons we look at the European okay uh we we look at all our options what about the wind all right good question a couple of people asking about that so again um if you're watching anywhere from south Louisiana be prepared for the potential tropical storm force winds it's hard to get into the exact numbers yet until we really see something come together because I showed you right if you if you were here through the uh update I showed you the floor and the ceiling the floor kind of being the European which showed a weaker system the graph which was probably more like a category one hurricane so until that becomes clear it's hard to get in and until we have more on the track it's hard to get into specific details but I'd be ready for tropical storm force winds and have in mind that we we can't rule out a category one hurricane so especially if we start getting a stronger tropical storm or a category one hurricane then you're talking about that power outage potential starting to come into play where is expected landfall again that's there's a range we're looking anywhere from Southeast Texas into south Louisiana I know we all human nature is we we want details we want we want exact but I'm not gonna I'm not going to try to to be more precise than we can at this point we just can't because we don't even have uh a real well organized area low pressure and develop yet all right here's one thing let me point this out this is one thing I want to mention I I think uh there's a decent chance later today or tonight this will be labeled as a potential tropical Cyclone uh so we've been doing this for several years the Hurricane Center has uh some of you have probably seen it in essence they will do that when a system really hasn't hit the criteria yet to be deemed a tropical depression or storm but they think it's likely to happen the reason they do that is it gives them the ability to issue watches and warnings and given that this could very well impact northern Mexico and Texas as a depression or storm within the next couple of days I think they're going to want to start advisories on a potential tropical Cyclone potentially uh later today or tonight when that happens we will get a forecast track from the Hurricane Center so that's something you can look at um look out for later today and we'll we'll be posting that obviously um yeah I see a couple of people asking about timeline looks like some folks kind of answered that for me thank you so yeah we're looking primary impacts Wednesday and the Thursday although some rain arriving as soon as Tuesday all right let's see if there's anything else give me one second um I will I'll point out one more thing uh kind of last minute it looks like I might be filling in at the station tonight um so I'll likely be on air at 5:30 and 10 I think our 5:30 newscast is on wbxh uh because of football and then 10 is where you would normally find us on WF so uh I'll be tracking this through the day any any important updates whether I'm at the station or not I'll I'll be posting hopefully most of you know that by now I'm pretty active on social media try to keep you updated um question here about uh being on the east side should we expect more Wind and Rain yes that's the general rule the thumb but we really have to get we have to see exactly where it tracks to get an idea of whether we get in on the strongest that stays a little bit West of us we just don't really have a good feeling Emily says whoat yeah HUD that all right yeah game should be underway by now it's a little bit after 12 all right um take one more Peak before we wrap it up uh also remember Download Our First Alert weather app um because within that we will publish video updates there's also when you go to the radar tab there's a tropical tracks layer you can turn on once we do start getting advisories on this which appears to be just about a certainty uh Joseph okay two good questions here Joseph asking any impacts in coastal Mississippi right now Joseph I think two things to watch in coastal Mississippi one would be uh some locally heavy rainfall but maybe more so uh the tornado threat uh you tropical systems landfalling tropical systems often have a tornado threat with them and that greatest tornado threat can be a bit removed from the center itself so that'd be one thing to watch and that kind of follows up on U there's a question below from William could there be tornadoes yeah I forgot to get into that but that's always a threat with tropical systems I did check in on the Storm Prediction Center Outlook they're not yet highlighting a severe weather threat I think will change I think you're going to start to see that showing up in the Tuesday Wednesday Thursday time frame you'll start to see those marginal to slight risk of severe weather showing up to cover the potential of tornadoes that's always a risk uh with the landfalling tropical system one other thing I forgot to mention um that's making the forecast a little bit tricky here some of our model guidance is indicating as this kind of moves northward through the gulf we see some some hints that it shows a sheared system which would tend to limit the strengthening and maybe some interaction with dry air which would also tend to limit the strengthening the other thing that those models are showing is potentially a system that's lopsided to the north with most of the active weather on North Side not so much on the South Side that's kind of still that's highly uncertain but it's it's a possibility being shown by at least a couple of the models so let's keep our fingers crossed then maybe they're on to something with that all right with that I think we'll go ahead and uh probably go ahead and wrap it up for now sorry hit the wrong graphic uh but we're still in the early stages here in a sense because we don't have a system that's developed however uh we're looking at uh probably you're looking at watches and or Warnings that could be issued for the Louisiana Coastline as soon as tomorrow so this is going to start to evolve pretty quickly um so be ready for it so make sure you got your hurricane plan in place you know all the usual stuff uh make sure you got batteries flashlights uh if you got a generator today is a good day to maybe fire it up and test it out make sure you don't have any issues um those sorts of things but but uh other than that we'll go ahead and wrap it up we'll be bringing you updates again more on air tonight at 5:30 and 10 see you then