11Alive Weather Impact Alert | Francine could bring storms later this week

Good evening everyone. I'm chief meteorologist Chris Holcomb from the 11 alive weather impact team and we do have an 11 alive weather impact alert that is going to be in effect for Thursday and Friday this week. And that is all because of this tropical storm Fran seen in the Gulf of Mexico. I know you're thinking of, you know, this being way out in the Gulf over near Mexico. Why would we have to have a weather impact alert for this? Well, it's because the system is going to be moving north and east and most likely making landfall on Wednesday, potentially as a category two hurricane and then the remnants of the system will move up to the north inland. We'll be on the right hand side of that track where we could see some impacts with rain, the potential for some wind gusts as well as monitoring the potential for some severe weather. So let's break down what's happening out there right now with this storm, we'll zoom in a little bit tighter and you can see that it is looking pretty well organized here. You can see a lot of the convection around the storm right there around that center of circulation. Uh We've been watching the storm increase in strength and looking a little more or here uh throughout the day today. So here is the latest that we have. This is from our eight o'clock intermediate advisory showing winds of about 65 miles an hour. Now, once the hurricane or once the tropical system gets to winds of 74 miles an hour or greater, that's when it becomes a hurricane. And we expect that to happen potentially later tonight or either early tomorrow, uh when it is upgraded to a hurricane. So here's a look at, we're watching where you can see it as a category one hurricane go out a big part of the day tomorrow. Then it's upgraded to a category two hurricane during the day on Wednesday. You see the landfall there most likely as a category two along the southern coast of Louisiana and then it continues moving up toward the north, pretty much the remnants moving up along the Mississippi River. Now, this is where things get a little bit tricky. This, all that we're talking about tonight is based on this current track. If the track goes more to the west, we wouldn't have as many impacts here in our area. If this track goes more to the east or closer to us, we will have to re evaluate and increase some of the impacts that we are expecting in our area. And whenever you have a, a system like this moving when you look at the forward motion of the storm like moving in this direction. And that right front quadrant, that is the part of the storm that has most of the impacts. And we are going to be on that right hand side. So we have to watch for some of those impacts that will be moving into our area. Here is a breakdown of the tropical alerts that are along the Gulf coast right now, the entire coast of Texas where you see the yellow uh that is where we have a uh a tropical storm watch. The blue on both sides there is where we have a tropical storm warning. The red over a big part of the coast of Louisiana is where we have a hurricane warning and then a hurricane watch more to the east of that and then over toward New Orleans, it is a tropical storm watch over in that area. So there are numerous advisories, watches and alerts in effect along the Gulf coast region. But what about us here in North Georgia and here in the metro Atlanta area. These are the three things that we need to look for here. Number one, as we're talking about those potential impacts for our area, we're really having to fine tune that storm track. And so far the uh tracks have been pretty consistent from the National Hurricane Center. Uh Some of them models show it making a little bit more of an eastward movement there. And if that continues, then we would have some additional impacts here for our area. But based on this current storm track, we're expecting landfall on Wednesday along the Louisiana coastline again as a category two hurricane. So what type of impacts will we have here? We're going to be watching the rain impact the wind and, and also the risk for some of those storms. And as far as the rain is concerned, we can see 1 to 4 plus inches of rain here in the metro area and in North Georgia, I know that's a really wide range. And the reason it is such a wide range is because, well, today's Monday, we're talking about Thursday and Friday where we would see those main impacts. So depending, depending on what that track does, and if it goes more to the east or stays over to the west, that will determine the amount of rain that we have and the models are not being consistent on those rainfall totals. So here is what we are watching, uh for the wind, the system is going to be moving on through really Thursday and Friday pretty much all day is when we're going to be dealing with some of those bands of rain that will be pushing through the impacts that we're watching is that rain and storm and even the wind risk. So what you need to do based on right now and based on this track that we're talking about now is stay weather aware. We are issuing this 11 alive weather impact alert just so that you will know that this is going to be our focus all week long. And depending on where Francine goes, how strong the storm goes and the speed of the storm after it moves inland, all of that is going to come together to really help us break down some of these impacts. So as of right now, just be weather aware and know that you need to keep up with it every day because we're going to be fine tuning this forecast and those impacts as we go through the next few days. So le let's walk through the timeline and the storm track that we're talking about here. So tonight, the main area, the center of circulation is right over here. We see those bands of heavy rain in association with Francine as it's moving along the Texas coast line. And it looks like most of that rain during the day on Tuesday will be along the Texas Coast, Louisiana coast, southern Missis, southern Alabama and beginning to move into the uh Florida Panhandle on Wednesday, the bulk of that rain stays to the west and also to the south of us. But notice here in Atlanta, we will have clouds increasing during the day on Wednesday, but we don't really expect any rain to come in here on Wednesday. But that will be over the Gulf coast region then extending northward up through Louisiana in the Mississippi and parts of Southwester Alabama. But here's the co of that heaviest rain as it's making landfall here during the afternoon hours on, uh, your Wednesday there in Louisiana. Now, I want you to watch this part of that main rain shield that starts pushing into our area during the day on Thursday. So, what you got here, here's the core of the storm moving up pretty much the, uh, the Mississippi River, uh, based on this track that we have right now, that's where we have the heaviest rain and the strongest winds, but still on this right hand side, that's where we see this rain shield moving in and just look at the flow around this. It's a counterclockwise flow that flow around this just uh ushering in all of this tropical Gulf moisture pushing it up into our area. And we're going to see a pretty good coverage of rain here during the day on Thursday. Then on Friday, the storm moves rather slowly up to the north here and as it does, it keeps feeding in all of that moisture. So we're going to see more rain during the day on Friday as well as a storm risk and as well as some of those gusty winds. And then on Saturday, we see some of these showers lingering with us, not as many, not an all day rain but still some of those off on scattered showers here and that lingers into Sunday as well and even into Monday, so it looks like it's going to be a very wet pattern. This system moves in, bringing us all of that tropical rain and all the tropical moisture pushing our way. So just be prepared for a good bit of rain moving in. So how much could we get? This is where it gets really tricky. And really, when you compare these models that really illustrates the uncertainty that we have depending on that track and what's going to happen with it, compare the American model that's over here and this is showing maybe around two inches of rain here in the metro area, maybe a little bit more than that up in parts of Northeast Georgia. But let's say 1.5 to uh maybe 2.5 inches of rain based on the American model. But look at the European model, this is showing a lot more rain that will be moving in. In fact, it has about 4.5 inches of rain over Atlanta and then we're talking 678 inch rain totals up in parts of Northeast Georgia. Now, what I want to stress with you is that just because a model is showing something that doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen, we look at the models and use that as guidance um for helping us to kind of fine tune the forecast. So you can see there's still a big range between these two models. And we're really hoping that once this track maybe becomes a little more consistent. And once we see the strength and the speed of this system after landfall, that we will see these models maybe coming together a little bit more. I do think the American model will come up somewhat and I think the European model will come down, hopefully, they'll kind of meet in the middle there. But the whole point I want to show you is number one, a lot of uncertainty with this. But number two, there is the potential to see some good rain out of this. Um, not only for Thursday and Friday, but also as we head into the weekend with some of those lingering showers around. The other thing we're watching the potential for some wind. Now again, we're on the right hand side of this system. Uh We think the center of the storm is going to be a couple of states away from us over by the Mississippi River. But the flow around it may give us some of those wind gusts. Now, these are not sustained winds. These are the wind gusts that we're talking about. We may see wind gusts around 15 miles an hour on Tuesday. All right. Nothing really big time there. Once we get into Wednesday, you see the wind gusts coming up just a little bit, maybe around 1820 mile an hour wind gusts on Wednesday. Then on Thursday, that's when we see the winds picking up a little bit more. Notice the red and orange colors coming in here showing wind gust on Thursday between 2030 miles an hour again, not, you know, constant sustained winds. It's just going to be rather breezy during the day and then some of these gusts will be higher. But notice back into Alabama where we get into the reds and purples, that's where those wind gusts are going to be stronger there. Now, whether or not this is strong enough to give us any widespread power outages, I don't really think that we're gonna have that but still a rather blustery day here during the day on, uh, your Thursday as well as on Friday. We're also watching the severe weather threat on Tuesday. Notice that little bit of dark green right down here in southern Louisiana, the storm is still going to be way over here, but in that quadrant, that right front quadrant, that's what we have to watch for some of the, uh, outer bands, uh, as they move in over the land, uh, to give the potential for some storms there. On Wednesday, it becomes a level two of five risk near New Orleans and then up to Jackson, the level one of five risk. Now we don't have any risk for us for Wednesday. But what we are going to be watching again if this storm moves up pretty much the Mississippi River on that right hand side, we'll see if we get maybe a level one risk that moves into our area for Thursday. And on Friday, it's really difficult. When you're talking about a landfall in tropical systems. Sometimes we look at different ingredients for severe weather like cape and, uh, you know, the sheer and all that stuff, but with a land falling tropical system, sometimes you get these bands that move in, you know, these outer bands almost like that pinwheel effect. And as those bands come in over land, it can develop some rotation there and sometimes we can see some tornado warnings. So that's those are all the things that we're gonna be monitoring there. So here's your forecast track for tonight. We're fine. Tomorrow is really going to be a nice day. We're going to see generally partly cloudy skies. Temperatures that will be around 87 degrees here you see on Wednesday, the cloud cover is increasing during the day Wednesday, but we think the rain will stay away then moving into Thursday. That's when we see more of this rain starting to move in. This is even on Thursday morning looking like we'll see some pretty good showers moving in and then throughout the day off and on showers here with us and then even more of that rain will be coming in for your Friday as well. There are some other systems that we need to watch this, of course, is Francine over in the Gulf near the Texas and Louisiana coastline there. But I want to take you out into the Middle Atlantic. There are a couple of other systems. We're watching. The one in orange here, you see more in the Central Atlantic has about a 40% chance of developing. We've been watching those percentages actually come down a little bit. It's becoming a little, a little less organized, but the one in red out closer to the coast of Africa has a 30% chance of developing into a name system over the next two days, 70% chance over the next seven days. So that's gonna be one to watch as of right now. The models try to curve it away. So summing up here in your seven day outlook, we do have that weather impact alert for Thursday and Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday look good showers. A few storms rolling in on Thursday and Friday for that weather impact alert. That's, those are the days. We think the wea the, the uh, weather impacts will be the highest, but still we're going to see some of those scattered showers into the weekend and next week as those temperatures move back into the lower eighties here for our area. So let's wrap it up here, uh, by showing you again, another look at this tropical satellite and another look at that, um, forecast track from the National hurricane center and you can see here the circulation around that center that counterclockwise flow around that swirl of clouds and convection that you see there nearing the southern part of Texas. And then here is the track showing again, the, uh, the tropical storm watch in effect along the Texas coast. Then you have tropical storm warnings and hurricane warnings there along the, uh, Louisiana coastline. There is when we expect a landfall Wednesday most likely in the afternoon hours on the coast of Louisiana and then watching those remnants, the center of the circulation there. Now, when I'm talking about the storm's impacts and we're tracking this, we're talking about tracking the center of circulation, which is what we think would move up along the Mississippi River. But we know the impacts go well beyond that Center of Circus and even well beyond the cone of uncertainty here. So we're on the right hand side. So we'll be watching for that rain for that wind and also the storm risk heading into Thursday and on Friday right now, we think the rain is going to be the main uh impacts that we'll be dealing with on those days. But also watching for the wind and uh the storm risk as well. Stay with us. We'll talk more about this coming up tonight on 11 Alive News and also complete coverage on 11 alive.com.