Wednesday 7 PM Tropical Update: Francine weakens to Category 1 Hurricane after landfall

I didn't know what Katie was going to say. I didn't know and we didn't want her to say it. You know, we'd rather not. All right, let's take a look. This is our view Orleans camera looking across the city Hibernia building and it is still pretty rough outside. At least looking at uh, some of the downtown, uh buildings, visibility is ok. We're getting in on some of the more intense rains elsewhere and I wanna try and put a little bit of a, a positive, uh outlook as we do have very intense storms that are kind of right now over parts of the northern Bayou River Parishes, metro area and moving, uh, kind of slowly toward the northeast, not what is down to our south southeast. It is a lack of rain and in fact, dry air is starting to erode a lot of those clouds. So once we are done with some of these heavier storms, we will begin to see more breaks and maybe kind of a wrapping up of a lot of our rainfall. But we still have to get what has been some more intense storms and that little blossoming of those thunderstorms happened right over a good portion of the population and I'm talking about from Chat Bay down towards Jean Lafitte Luling, the LA place we're getting in on some of those heavier storms now into, uh, uh Jefferson Parish. But we're also getting kind of, uh, rotating around the center, uh, across the metro area from, uh, New Orleans, East Bell Chase. These are moving across, uh, ST Bernard Parish and the center of the storm is not too far to the now southeast or southwest. Excuse me, of Thibodeaux. Thibodeau may be right on the cusp of seeing some breaks in the rainfall. But even as we're getting the breaks in the rain, there are still some very strong winds. I was kind of looking down, uh Meg Ferris is in Lafoe and asking from uh some uh law enforcement officials asking when will they start to see some breaks in the wind? Well, what looks to be kind of a big break in the wind? We can switch on our velocities. We use this when we're looking for rotation in storms, but it also shows us what winds are doing in storms and notice. Now these again, it looks like it is excessive wind. We are looking from the Hammond uh radar site into a storm that is well elevated. So we probably do have 80 to 90 mile an hour winds well, well above the surface down toward the surf. What these are indicating is that the winds remain very strong. So even though the rain is starting to clear out across much of Lafoe, the winds remain very strong. And again, this is I I understand misleading because we're looking at winds well above the surface, probably several 1000 ft above the surface because you have to consider the radar beam looking down this far south, the just normal curvature of the earth, we're looking higher into the storm. So this is not what has occurred down at the surface, but it just indicates what the winds are still very brisk across Lafoe Parish. They have not really subsided at all. Looking at some of the rainfall estimates thus far where we have got those heavier bands of rain, 4 to 6 plus inches of rainfall starting to see those inching a little bit closer toward JP. So what has been fairly significant rainfall? And we talked about the fact that we would likely see kind of isolated 6 to 8 inches, maybe a little bit more widespread than we would like to see, but certainly very much heavy heavy rainfall. And these are also some of the strongest winds noticed we are getting in now and no big surprise, severe, excuse me, flash flood warnings being issued across now, a good portion including all of the city, but a good portion of now the south shore and down toward the coast, it also looks like we do have a new, uh, tornado warning, uh for just the south or right around slidell. I'm gonna try and go over to our velocities uh real quick uh looks like right about there, kind of what you see near Ed Nile. So moving in that direction, uh what looks to be a possible tornado. Again, we're gonna see several of these uh throughout the course of the night and into the early um um uh late night hours. I shouldn't even say the early morning hours. Uh the rotation uh sensor not even really picking up anything because again, these are just embedded within some very heavy rains, rainfall. So if you're in kind of the Eden is area slide out toward Lacombe, you want to get to a centrally located room, stay away from the windows, wait for these storms to pass through. Again, these cells are moving at 60 plus miles an hour at times. So if there is indeed a very weak tornado, it is going to be moving at a very rapid clip. So just keep that in mind and we'll likely see more warnings as we continue through the rest of the evening. I don't know if we can actually get the text from the national weather service office on this uh new tornado warning, uh because this is looks like it has just come in and I do wanna kind of uh uh emphasize, let me see if I can. We've got so many. Uh ok, please. Yeah, Alexa Trisler has the has kind of the text from the seven miles southeast of Slidell. It's moving northwest at 40 MPH. Yeah. So 40 I said 60 but they are moving very, very quickly. So I'm gonna go to our, uh, reflectivity here obviously where it looks like we've got this, um, not exactly a couplet, but again, you're not gonna see kind of that classic. When we talk about severe weather, we're tracking severe weather, you're not going to see that within the storms. But again, it looks to be right at about here and then moving very quickly. So, uh toward the Eden Iss area, toward the Eden Niles area and then continuing along this kind of north westerly track toward Lacombe. Again, the storm is moving at about 40 miles an hour, not really seeing anything on the rotation uh when we uh indicate that. But again, this is such a broad large rotating storm. Sometimes the algorithms in the in the uh radar are, are not able to really detect that. And again, this is not something that has been observed. This is per the National Weather Service Radar uh where we start to see kind of that uh little coupling and a little bit of wind shear. Let me see if any um share markets are showing up and look like that. Ok. And it was just looking at that. So still nothing with the rotation. So, uh again, what, what uh could be a a tornado. If again, you're in the Eden Isles area and then areas to the northwest toward Lacombe, you want to get into that, uh, centrally located room as there could possibly be a tornado on the ground. As we've been mentioning that we're gonna likely see several of these warnings issued, uh, throughout the course of the rest of the night tonight and into the, uh, late night hours. Uh, so just one likely of probably another half dozen or so. And hopefully that's about all we would see. But as we've said, this is very, very common for land falling storms, even weak tropical storms, just the broad rotation, just the nature of these storms will lead to the potential for a quick little spin up tornadoes. Again. They don't last for very long and they tend to be a little bit on the weaker side and no, we usually don't see, uh, warned areas this large, but because of the speed the storm itself is moving or the potential tornado is moving at 40 miles an hour, it kind of includes a very large area. So a little bit more of an issue on the north shore right now, south of the lake, though, we've still got more of a widespread, strong damaging wind threat, uh, that will continue. Uh, doesn't look like these storms have been moving very, very rapidly. You kind of watch the overall structure of what is now more of a broad, uh, not even the eye any longer but the broad circulation around the center of Francine Notice on radar. We are not really seeing anything on the southern and the southwester southeastern side of the storm. So that is certainly great news that we will see again. We kind of get some like back building over Jean Lafitte because we're still tapping into plenty of moisture. But we can kind of get all that moisture cut off from the increasing dry air that will start to help us out throughout the course of the night. But we'd also mentioned that the fact that right after landfall, that wouldn't be the worst of it that would continue to increase in intensity throughout the night and going into the, uh late night overnight hours, uh toward midnight. So right now, the worst of the storm from Chat Bay to Jean Louis kind of a large area and really through the river parishes and up toward JP, if it kind of continues along that path, and this is just looking at the last hour, you'll notice the storms have really not moved a whole lot that have been sitting kind of over those same areas, which is why we've already seen radar estimates of six plus inches of rainfall in these areas. So not a whole lot of movement. We like to see start moving a little bit faster toward the northeast, kind of move it in and out of these other areas. Uh but as of right now, uh, we're just not seeing that movement of those heavier storms. Also want to highlight again that we do have that potential tornado around the slide L area. It looks, it looks like it was, uh, now looking to be maybe around, um, L A 433 and, uh, slide L actually kind of, uh, won't be too, too far from the, uh, well, it'll be, looks like it'll stay south of 12. So if you're in the slide L area, this looks to be, uh, right around 10, just to the east of 10 looks like this is probably gonna stay to the south of I 12 as it continues along this path. Uh, you can kinda see, uh, Ponche train drive zooming in here a little bit. Uh, there's, uh, how beach road, then you, then you've got, uh, uh CLI itself, which is labeled here and then Oak Harbor Boulevard looks like it's right around there. So around Oak Harbor Boulevard and I 10, we've got that potential and again, these usually are weak. They usually don't do much in the way extensive, uh, uh, damage, but certainly some damage nonetheless, with these, uh, potential tornadoes as they are going to be rotating around the entire circulation of Francine. And we'll be watching for this threat as we continue through the rest of the night. Again, the rotation kind of wind shear marker not jumping out, uh, on, it looks like there was a little bit here, uh, at one point kind of on highway nine and we'll see if that coincides with any, uh, reflectivity and, uh, uh, maybe a little bit, but it does look like this is the larger area. So we'll continue to monitor this as we go through the rest of the evening and into tonight. Probably we'll see another, more, another handful of those, uh, going forward. Uh, we'll also have to wait and see once these, uh, storm. Let me actually kind of put this into motion over the last three hours to see what the rains have been doing. Uh, this started to approach kind of that, um, Thibodeaux race the Allman's Corridor. Um, go back in time, kind of started to reach you about five o'clock or so. And now we're getting, uh, towards 730. So we haven't really seen, it's interesting. I haven't really seen a lot of movement with this band. What could have been at one time considered more the, uh, northeastern part of the eye wall itself. We really have not seen a whole lot of motion with this. We'll see what happens, uh, within time, but it almost looks like the center just isn't been moving toward the northeast. Uh, and that, uh, these storms are kind of still being fed in from that, uh, gulf moisture, which is helping to increase those rainfall rates. And as I mentioned, those areas looking at probably estimates of six plus inches of rainfall uh at this point. So this is already a very saturated uh region which is why we do have the flash flood warnings didn't get quite those estimates on the metro area side, uh but could be uh kind of ticking up that way. But flash flood warnings there again, with these flash flood warnings being issued, no one should be out and about but just kind of a heads up where you may want to keep an eye out to see what the water is doing. Just look out the window, look out the front door, see what the water is doing on the streets and, uh, see if hopefully it is not, uh, coming up at all, but something that is a little bit more of a concern now with, uh, the storm almost not really moving a whole lot, at least based on our reflectivity here, then you'll notice kind of on the back side of it. This is just a one hour imagery. It does look like it almost seems, seems to be moving but doesn't look like it's moving a whole lot. Really, what we're just seeing is kind of the dry air take over on the southern southwester side of the, I don't even want to call it an eye anymore, but the overall circulation around the storm rotation around the storm, it almost looks like it's kind of just getting eroded away and really more of a focus now on the uh northern end and northeastern corner of the storm that is just continuing to be fed by all of that gulf moisture with, I mean, basically, uh flash flood warnings being issued from Cocodrie uh across all of our southern parishes, including the river pa really as these uh kind of complex storms along what had been the northeastern eye wall, we're getting in on some of the heaviest of the rainfall. Let me see what the winds are doing at some of our observing stations, uh, kind of the official observing stations here as the storm continues or what looks to be almost slowly moving at this point, uh, sustained at the Houma at almost 50 miles an hour. So we're now getting data in Houma. That is interesting. Almost 50 miles an hour gusting though up to about 60 miles an hour, we're getting the wind gust, no sustained winds have been 2535 miles an hour in the metro area, but gusting about 50 to 55 miles an hour. So we are certainly getting some higher wind gusts but sustained wise. Uh, we're running below 40 miles an hour, obviously much stronger in Houma. And that was something that, uh, I probably should have caught early when we're looking at maybe some of that rainfall move out of from where, uh, Lily Cummings was in Houma. You still had some very strong winds, I guess they weren't far enough removed from that outer eye wall, uh, to see the winds immediately settle down or at least get a little bit, uh, uh, lessened as the winds were still howling there. But interesting that we're now getting, we had had data there for a while and starting to finally get some, uh, data coming in. And, uh, very necessary. You'll also notice kind of look at that the winds and going back to where, uh, the storm is. The winds at Houma are out of the south east and the center of the storm. So the winds at home are out of the southeast. So let's go back to our radar here and see what the, make sure I selected the right one. Ok. So the, um, winds are still out of the southeast at Houma. So it really, the, the storm itself hasn't made a whole lot of progress toward the, toward the north. You would expect them to have gone maybe a little bit lighter with the storm center almost over Houma right now. So those winds are still out of the southeast. So we'll kind of see what the storm, uh, path is going to be doing in the near term right now, at least based on that, uh what have been the eastern and northeastern eye wall, not a whole lot of progress, although maybe it looks like now we're starting to get a little bit drier in, uh Thibodeaux, little bit of a break. Now, starting to move toward Raceland, not quite all the way through to Zalman and some of the heaviest across the river parishes and depending upon how these build further south towards Jean Lafitte. So lower Jefferson may just kind of ride up through the rest of the parish in effect Northern JP as well as uh uh the city of New Orleans and uh all of Eastern Orleans Parish. Though we're getting some rounds of rain still pushing through Saint Bernard Northern plaques and then moving through Eastern New Orleans as well as into Saint Tammany Parish. And it is around the Slydale area where we did have that tornado warning.