Forecasting With Friends - Hurricane Francine Special Coverage

Storm is just hours away from making landfall in Louisiana, and we have crews spread across the coast monitoring these impacts, both here at home and in Louisiana. Our Leslie Delasbour is live in Galveston, and our Sherman Desselle is live in Lafayette, and Fox weather is brandy Campbell is in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But we begin first with meteorologist John Dawson and Misha Shade in the Weather Center tracking Francine's path. All right. We are definitely been busy throughout the last couple of days. Tracking. Yes. Tracking. Francine. We're a little bit relieved of the path that is not coming here locally to Houston, but yeah, as mentioned, that countdown has really, really begun here with the last couple hours before landfall. So let's take a look at that. That map on where we're expecting to see that landfall within the next couple of hours. We are going to see what looks like right now at least a category one hurricane with 90 mile per hour winds. Now 96 mile per hour winds would get you a category two hurricane. So this is going to be very close as it begins to make that possible. Landfall towards the Louisiana coast. Getting those conditions really close to making that landfall. So right now that landfall is expected to be with a 90 mile an hour winds right in the center of Louisiana, Vermilion Bay there. And then you can see on the map just going to head right up pretty much between Lafayette and New Orleans as a category one hurricane. It will obviously weaken once it makes landfall and then move on into, here to the rest of the Louisiana state there and continue to make its way even further inland as a tropical storm with winds as high as perhaps 45 miles an hour, as it continues to move on through just so we're local here, here in the Houston area, we have no watches or warnings that we're concerned with at the moment, but we are looking at the hurricane watch or sorry warnings and tropical storm warnings over to our east. We'll continue to see those until that landfall takes place. Those are pretty much strictly based on winds. There's also some storm surge concerns over there. Again, locally here in the Houston area, we've got our coastal flood warning, which downgraded to a coastal flood advisory, and it's been extended all the way through most of the day tomorrow. We're still looking at a possibility of seeing a foot or two of storm surge. Those low lying areas that we sometimes have problems with, those are going to be something that we're concerned with once again. And we'll see those storms as a possibility. Those isolated showers and storms also rolling around the area. The main concern is going to be what's happening right along the coast and the beach. But you'll notice that advisory, though, does wrap all the way around Galveston Bay. So here's that look one more time of where we see you can see that little jog there at the end. Some of that is just sort of some reformation of the center. Some of it is actually movement that's taking place. But really beginning to get in the last couple of hours before landfall. Our radar imagery shows that I even a little bit better. It's fairly broad. You can also see the stronger storms that are going to be associated around that. And tightening up here you can see all of the details on where some of those towns are, where some of the cities are that you are familiar with, and we're definitely going to be keeping an eye on what happens in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and all of those specific areas as a matter of fact, we have some folks there in Baton Rouge. That is right. We are closely monitoring this situation. Of course, like JT said, a few minutes ago, relief. Exactly what we're feeling in the Houston area, because a few days ago it looked like Francine might be heading our way. But of course, that track continued to shift to the east. And of course, what's good news for us is horrible news for a big chunk of the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Of course, that eye wall of Francine now less than 100 miles away from making landfall, and it is likely going to bring a ton of rain, big time, dangerous storm surge. And of course, those ferocious winds. We want to head out to Fox weather reporter Brandy Campbell out in Baton Rouge. Brandy, what is it looking like out there? It doesn't look super windy right now, but have you experienced some gusty wind? What's the situation at this point? Hey, Misha. Yeah, thankfully we haven't seen any very impactful impacts from Francine. Not just yet. So as you can tell, if you just look off in the distance behind me, the trees, they aren't moving much at all. And that's kind of been the case for most of this morning. And when it comes to rain, it's also been pretty light for most of the day. So that's the good news. We're not seeing any flooding from the storm just yet, but we know we are just really in the early stages as we aren't going to feel the brunt of it here in the Baton Rouge area until around midnight, I was told a lot of the impacts will start to come in around 9:00, but around midnight is when the center of the storm will be passing us, so we'll be on the northwestern side of the storm. But when it comes to Baton Rouge, they have things in place to be ready. The mayor, president of the city, she said they went ahead and put in their disaster declaration so they can free up those resources to get ready. So doing things like clearing up the storm basins. So if we take a look just across the street, you see right there, if there was flooding, they went ahead and cleared out, you know, those situations to make sure they're okay. But we shouldn't see it in this specific area. Now if we just take a look continuing across the street, you see this restaurant there, open sign off. So a lot of places closing early today. And that's not just restaurants, but also that includes hardware stores, places where people were going to get some gear or supplies to be ready for the storm or even grocery stores. We went to one earlier today. They closed at 12:00, so we caught some last minute shoppers who who said they weren't quite super concerned, but they wanted to make sure that they were ready for the storm. Back to you. To ask you, like, what type of activity have you been seeing around town? I know it looks like it's kind of deserted where you are, but have you seen any folks out making extremely last minute preparations? And also, what types of weather are you expecting? What's the worst of it you're expecting for that area? Yeah, so the worst we're going to expect is some heavy rainfall. And also we could get wind gusts between 50 and 60mph, even up to 70 if it gets to that point. And when it comes to folks, yeah, it's been pretty quiet in downtown, but we have seen some people coming by to get some groceries before they're locked inside. Back to you. All right. Good reports there from Baton Rouge with our fox weather correspondents. We'll be having a few more conversations like that coming up. Right now, though, we have a great opportunity to talk with the deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. This is Jamie Rhome. Jamie, can you hear me? This afternoon? I got you loud and clear. All fantastic. Good to see you, Jamie. I know at this point, I think our forecast is pretty set. Not a lot of questions about where Francine's going, but what are the concerns right now for you folks as as far as getting ready for this to make its landfall? You know, we're really focusing at this point on making sure people start thinking about the post landfall hazards while they still have power and internet and can hear these messages. You know, you and I have talked about this many times. Sometimes it's a heat, oppressive heat and the loss of power that ends up being the big hazards after these storms. Often, you know, we have greater loss of life in the days after landfall than we do at landfall. Fortunately that with barrel here across the state of Texas, where carbon monoxide poisoning and other heat related injuries and deaths were, were something that was taking place. So I could see where that's that's the messaging that you might be shifting to, again, with, with your primary, you know, goals being to, to get it very clear where this is headed. And we've kind of got that pretty much narrowed down at this point in time. Tell me a little bit about the concerns with Louisiana. There specific topography. And I know storm surge is also a threat, but how does Francine going to going to hit Louisiana? The hardest? I think it's going to be a water a big water event in the form of storm surge, heavy rains occurring basically in the same place. And you couple that with the sort of preexisting rains that they were having in the days and weeks in advance. I think the soils at some point are going to get saturated, you know, you and I have seen this numerous times. The saturated soils just make the trees come down, even easier when the winds come ashore and they're starting to come ashore now. And I think that's going to drive the power outages up. Jamie, unfortunately, I've been told we're kind of running out of time a little bit here for our conversation, but I want to ask you this question because I haven't had a chance to really talk with anybody about that with the hurricane Center, since you've started implementing your new forecast cone, again, it's not operational, I don't think, but it certainly Francine has gotten some good use of it. I know, so just tell me a little bit about how that's going and anything else you want to share about the new, kind of improved cone forecast cone that we've started using a little bit. Yeah, we launched it earlier in August for, for all intents and purposes, this is the first storm that we could really demonstrate the full capacity and capabilities of the new graphic and the initial feedback is positive because we're better able to articulate and communicate the inland risk of wind, whereas the older cone primarily focused on the coastal threat. All right. That's fantastic. Appreciate your time today again, Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Always good chatting with you, we'll hope to have another opportunity to talk with you again soon. We're going to go ahead and check in now with our meteorologist Ramesh Shade. All right, let's get another look at Francine, which of course, is a category one hurricane. We are on what we call the clean side. The western side. And if you've got to be on any side of this, that is definitely the side to be on. Because usually there's less wind, less rain, not a ton going on. We are getting some light, spotty rain showers for our area. However, nothing close to being severe. Of course, this is the center of circulation just to the south of New Iberia, south of Baton Rouge. Getting close to that middle Louisiana Gulf Coast, you can see that swirl. You could see those intense rain bands in that eyewall of hurricane Francine. Of course, the eastern side, the area to the east of that center of circulation is the dirty side. That's the side where you're going to have super heavy rain. That storm surge risk increases. And of course, the tornado risk increases as well. In fact, speaking of tornado risk, I want to show you that we already have a tornado. Watch out for a big chunk of the Louisiana area. This is out through 11 p.m. tonight. You'll see that does include the New Orleans area, New Iberia and several other Louisiana cities. Because Francine is getting close to making landfall, you can see that eye and that intense eyewall with those heavy thunderstorms likely, some of those severe getting close to making landfall and all of this rain action will be pushing onshore over the next several hours. So these cities will be lashed by heavy rain, strong wind that storm surge risk increasing. And of course, we've also got the tornado threat. So a lot of different threats going on here. Also, it looks like there are a couple of flood warnings there. So it's just going to be a very messy scenario. Off to our east. For much of the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Now let me take you back to what's going on in our area. You may be wondering, yes, we're on the cleaner side, but do we have any impacts, any risk from Hurricane Francine at this point, we do still have one advisory. There's a little bit of good news. This was a coastal flood warning. That's a little more severe. But over the last 30 minutes or so, National Weather Service has downgraded that coastal flood warning to a coastal flood advisory. So that basically means there could still be a little bit of flooding due to storm surge, maybe storm surge around 1 to 2ft. Still expected for parts of our coastal area. So down around Galveston, the Bolivar Peninsula, down around Freeport, there will be the potential for still a few feet of storm surge. That water could still pile up onto the coast. And of course, that could mean some flooding that could be taking place. So we are not completely out of the woods. But yes, we do have still that slim risk for some coastal flooding. The wind advisory, though, was allowed to expire, so we've gotten rid of that. But there could still be some wind gusts around 3035, possibly close to 40mph, but likely closer to 30 to 35. I want to show you where we do have some rain at this point you can see some spotty, mainly light rain showers stretching from Katy to Sugarland. Few heavier bursts of rain down around Angleton Lake Jackson and also down towards Freeport. But this is not severe. Of course, if Francine had come a little closer to us, it would have been so much worse, with widespread heavy rain likely widespread flooding. But that is not the case for us. So we are fortunate and thankful. I'm sure as far as a rain chance, farther north, we do have some spotty showers up toward Cypress Mission Bend. As I said, Sugarland, downtown Houston getting some sprinkles, little spritzes of rain here and there, but just not a ton of rain action. But we do have the clouds kind of dreary and breezy out there, but like I said, it could have been a lot worse. So this is all we have to deal with. This is a great thing. Farther north, we've got some rain showers up around Huntsville, right along Interstate 45 over towards Navasota. You are getting some light to moderate rain, but nothing severe happening in our area. So let's talk about Southeast Texas impacts as we continue to track. Francine. Of course, the most horrible of the weather is going to be off to our east in Louisiana, but there could still be some wind sustained out of the north around 20mph, with gusts up to about 30 to 35mph. Minor coastal flooding still possible. And yes, we can't rule out maybe a brief isolated thunderstorm, but even the chance for that is on the lower side. It looks like that big time severe risk, including tornado threat, storm surge threat, flooding threat will be off to our east. All right. Thank you. Now, we do have crews all across the Gulf Coast monitoring these impacts. We have Leslie Delasbour over here. We have Sherman to cell right behind me. And Sherman is live in Lafayette, Louisiana. And Sherman, correct me if I'm wrong. You grew up there, right? Yeah. So I'm actually in Morgan City, which is about an hour and a couple of minutes south of Lafayette. And I grew up a few they would consider me in Louisiana, a northerner. I grew up in Alexandria, central Louisiana, but I'm familiar with all these parts. Just between friends and family. So take a look. This is the Atchafalaya River and this is a body of water that a lot of locals check when a storm is coming in. Pan to the right. You see this guy over here? He's been monitoring everything. This is what we normally see here in Louisiana. When storms are coming by. People are just coming to check this particular area. So further to the right over here, turn around. Chandler, this is downtown Morgan City, an older historic city. So it has that historic, nostalgic old school feel. But you'll notice that a lot of these businesses, of course, they're empty right now, but they're boarded up as well because of how low the city sits by this river. And it's around this area surrounded by bodies of water. It's not just the Atchafalaya River, but it's the Bayou. And the Atchafalaya actually feeds into the Gulf. So that kind of gives you an idea of how close we are to the Gulf of Mexico. And so a lot of people's main concerns here wind storm surge, that's something that a lot of people along the coastal parts of, of this part of Louisiana will always worry about and deal with. For the most part, though, the people that we've run into, they say that they've they've seen worse. They felt worse, they've they've lived through worse. They just wanted to do what it needs to do and get get out of here in the last 30 minutes to an hour. Would you say, Chandler, we've heard that wind pick up. We've been hearing it roar across the bridge. So we definitely know that it's coming here and it's moving relatively fast, just based off of what Ramesh has been telling us. And what other forecasters have been telling us. Here's that pocket of wind. Yeah. So we've been getting pockets of wind, pockets of rai, people just checking in, seeing what it looks like. But again, this is the Atchafalaya big body of water that goes through a lot of different parts of the southern region. And there is a floodgate right over there on that side as well. So there's a lot of things happening here. You got any questions for me, Caroline? Yes. Sherman. So you're in Morgan City, Louisiana, and it really doesn't look like there's a whole lot of people that are out there right now, is it? I mean, have people evacuated? Is it somewhat of a ghost town at this point? I do see some other people standing where you're standing. Yeah, yeah. No, it's it looks like a ghost town right now. But people are hunkered down just to the left of us on the other side of these downtown buildings are some homes, and there are some people on their porches because they're just used to living in this type of condition. For the most part. A lot of people have not gotten out of Morgan City because it just doesn't deem it to be bad enough to leave. Some people leave just for the comfort of not having to deal with power outages and things like that. But for the most part, everybody's just kind of sticking around, just just waiting this thing on out. Wow. Back to you. Well, Sherman, please be careful and stay safe out there. We appreciate your update. All right, now we want to head on over to our reporter, Leslie Delasbour, live in Galveston. With what conditions are like at the coast there? Leslie. 610 on the west end near Bay Harbor. Right. So this is my friend, Miss Jessie Ann. And she was so nice to let us come to her home. Now, I want you to kind of walk us through what you saw. It was like 430 this morning, and now this water has subsided. But you saw something different, right? Tell me what you saw. Sure. You know, jellyfish and all that. So now it's going to go out. So it'll probably leave the critters on land for me. Oh, well, I mean, how does this. You know, I guess. How do I want to say this? How high does this typically get? Is this normal for you? All right, Leslie, it looks like we were having some microphone problems there with you. I would like to get you back. So we can hear from that resident there. As we could see that flooding. And, Leslie, if you can hear me sometimes, if you hold the bottom of the mic like that will, it'll break up. So hold the stick of it. That might fix it. All right. So we are continuing to cover Hurricane Francine making its way to Louisiana. But obviously you could see there in Leslie's live shot that there is already storm surge and some flooding happening in Galveston. Let's get back to our meteorologist, John Dawson, who's been tracking this storm. JD yeah, we really you know, here in the Houston area, like downtown Houston, just not much happening. We've got a little bit of rain. I don't even know that it's that much breezier than usual, to be perfectly honest. But on the coast in Galveston, Bolivar Peninsula even further, a little bit down to the south, there are certainly some impacts that are recognizable. It's not your average day here in September. You can tell that there's tropical weather in the proximity. Again, it's not a hurricane making a landfall, but it's certainly something that you can tell is different. And those impacts are taking place and certainly inconvenience if not even more than causing some problems. The what I would call life threatening storm surge and winds and things like that are much further over to the east into Louisiana. Let's check in real quick. Again with that latest from the National Hurricane Center on our graphics. We'll be able to see that that forecast cone of where we're expecting to make landfall is tightening up here. There's just not that much time left right now. 90 mile an hour winds are what we're looking at as far as that landfall. Taking place. So that's going to be technically a cat one hurricane very close to a category two hurricane that will continue to take place again through the rest of this evening. And then we're going to watch this storm really track up in through Mississippi, continuing to bring some dangerous, damaging winds, along with lots of rainfall as it does so. And then that's going to lead to potential for everything else that, that that we've seen with tropical systems, with lots of rain, with some flooding, but also those damaging winds could be knocking down power lines. That's going to be looking for some power outages that are associated as well. And continuing to take it all the way up into even Tennessee with some rain. All right. We're going to go ahead and get back into the studio with Caroline yet. JD a lot to look out for. I think that we have Leslie Dallas sports microphone all fixed up down in Galveston. As you can see some areas already seeing storm surge and flooding. Leslie Yeah, apologies for that technical those technical issues earlier. But again I'm here with Jessie an now Jessie. And you live on the West End in Bay Harbor of Galveston, and you came outside. It was about 430 this morning. And now, like I said, this water that you can kind of I don't know if you guys can see our feet, but I know you can hear us sloshing around here. This water was a lot higher when you first woke up this morning. Tell me what you saw and what you woke up to. Well, it's dark, but all my lights are on. So when I went to bed, the tide was high anyway. So as the storm passes, it's just throwing the nice clean water because we're on the clean side. So all the bay water comes up here with little critters, shrimp. I was down here trying to make sure everything was tied down. School of shrimp swam right in front of my feet. And when the tide recedes, which is happening now, you can see that it's coming back off the bulkhead. It's coming off of the pier. Wow. And it'll start going on down where it belongs and puts itself back in its bank. But it's going to be leaving some critters on the concrete, and we'll just pressure wash off the mud and the muck and any critters that got left behind. And so about how high does this water typically get? And you can run it anywhere from 10in to 17in. Yeah. And I mean, you seem pretty calm. I mean, you said you saw a school of shrimp swimming in front of you. I probably would have freaked out. But tell me why you're so calm. And, I mean, I guess this is a norm because you live. You've lived here for so long, right? This is the price you pay for living in Paradise. These houses are built to withstand this. So it's nothing to get scared about. Wind. However, you know can take things away. Flood is going to float. Things So as long as you live upstairs and you're above the water level, you're pretty safe. Yeah. And did you have any damage or anything to. You know, I guess this garage area, this lower level here. No. No damage. It's just water. And it's going to soak up the cedar siding. And within years, as it goes by, that cedar siding will rot and you'll replace it and move on. Yeah. And you were explaining to me earlier, too, that when the storm kind of moved past Galveston, it brought that tide and so explain kind of what, you know, just based off of living here, what typically happens with that tide when storms come through. So when I went to bed last night with the tide being right at the edge of the bulkhead, it was high. 1030 11:00 knowing that the storm was going to pass us turning in a counterclockwise, it's throwing all this bay water on us. But as it passes Galveston, it's going to be sucking all that bay water out, which is what it's doing now. So if you just watch that spin, it's got to throw it somewhere and then it's got to suck it out later this afternoon. It'll probably well back into its banks. Wow. Perfect. And so now I know when we were walking this way, I was trying to watch my step. Here, show me again. I kind of want you to show me where that drop off is. And again, just the difference of where the water was to this post versus where it is now. So this is the bay itself. Wow. I didn't want to step off in there, of course we've got the pier that goes out. It's pretty safe, but bulkheads is what's supposed to hold the water in the bay. But of course, Mother Nature says it's coming out there. It is perfect. Awesome. Well, again, Miss Jessie, and like I said, lives here on the west end of Galveston in Bay Harbor. And she's been here forever. As you heard her say, she's used to this. So we'll be out here all day and kind of taking a look at this water and letting this tide and go back into the bay, back to you in the studio. All right. Leslie Delasbour, thank you so much for that update. Now, I want to get back to our meteorologist, John Dawson. And JD. I have a couple questions for you. I believe the worst of our impacts have passed. Is that correct? And the worst has yet to come for the folks in Louisiana. And that impact will be between like four and eight tonight. Am I right on that? Yeah As far as the timing in Louisiana, you're right in the fact that we're starting to ramp up right now. Even while we were talking to Sherman to sell a minute ago, I thought things were getting worse while we were talking with him. And so, yes, the worst of what's happening in Louisiana is really beginning right now. And for us, yes, for the majority of us, we have seen the worst of what we're going to see. We do still expect some of that water that we were looking at there with Leslie Delasbour live shot to continue to be a problem for some parts of Galveston with some of that minor flooding. All right. A few minutes ago, we were talking with Jamie Rhome, the deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, and our friends at Fox Weather decided they wanted to talk to him as well. So we kind of got a little bit interrupted. But I'm glad to say that Jamie is back. He's available to check in with us a little bit, and I want to sort of continue our conversation, but also just sort of review a little bit and start over and basically say you're forecasting stress. I think at this point has minimized because we know where it's going. But I think there are certainly some concerns, some messaging that you're still wanting to get out to the folks in Louisiana. Yeah we're trying to get out. The message of the post landfall hazards while people still have internet and TV and power to hear this message. So, so often we see the storms, you know, people lose power and access to information, and it becomes difficult to communicate with them. And often some of the greatest threats come in the hours and days after landfall, where it becomes really, really tough to talk to people. And I think that's good to get that messaging out early. And we certainly saw that with the power outages across Texas and the Houston area with barrel when it moved through earlier on in the season, I'm going to expect some of that to happen as well into Louisiana. Is there something else that's a concern, or is that kind of where your focus is just the fact there's going to be loss of power? Yeah, I mean, I think the preexisting conditions in the form has been very wet over the area for several days, especially last night, the, you know, leading up to the storm. And so you've got all that rainfall falling on saturated soil, plus the storm surge. You've got a lot of water really piling up with nowhere to go. And then sometimes what happens in that case is the roots, the tree roots are loosened up a little bit in the soil, and that makes them come down even more easily when the core of the winds move ashore. And as you noted a few seconds ago, those winds are already starting to move ashore pretty quickly. So what you could see here is a lot of power outages. And then if it occurs at nighttime, overnight, which is looking like it's going to do driving conditions get especially treacherous. So we really just want people to just stay put, stay home, don't be out moving around. I know it's you're curious. You want to see what's happening. This is going to be a good night just to stay home. And I always like when I have an opportunity to talk a little bit more science. We don't have to get too technical in our discussions, but there's a kind of a pop, a words that are really used a lot this day. These days, when we look at this rapid intensification and again, it's a legit thing, it certainly happens when those storms all of a sudden go from a cat one and the, you know, before you know it, it's a cat three. But we really did not see that with this particular storm. And I was I don't want to say I was surprised, but my initial thoughts were this should happen. The water was so warm in the Gulf of Mexico, but we had a lot of other factors kind of laying in there with an old frontal boundary and a couple different steering currents and some dry air. So I just kind of wanted to give you an opportunity to sort of tell us a little bit about this term, rapid intensification and, and what you saw when y'all were forecasting for Francine. Yeah. So rapid intensification is, is just basically what we call a system that strengthens very, very quickly, quickly, rapidly. And we've seen a lot of it in the in the last 5 to 10 years. So it's natural for people to assume that any system in the Gulf of Mexico is going to rapidly intensify. In this case, we had several unique factors coming to play. The storm was basically riding along a line or an axis of vertical shear, where everything to the west was higher. Vertical shear or an environment that was less conducive for development and everything to the east was more conducive for development. And the storm kind of rode right along that line, if you will. And that's what made the forecast really, really tricky. You know, we've had it moved a little bit to the east. It could have developed, you know, been a bit a stronger system. If it would have moved to the West, it would have been a weaker system in this case, the forecast played out pretty much as expected. So we're we're generally pleased with that, but we're remaining steadfast to make sure that the people you know in harm's way are receiving the warnings and the messaging and taking the necessary precautions. We've had several opportunities to attend some conferences together, and we've sat in some workshops and things that talk a lot about the social science that's involved with weather prediction. And I know that that most of the time you've got to stick to a rule book. You got to do certain things depending on certain parameters. But when I look at this storm and your max winds are sitting at 90 miles an hour, if you were to bump them up six miles an hour on your expectations, then this thing gets to be called a cat two instead of a cat one. So talk a little bit about some of that thinking that has to go. Get into your forecasts. When or do you take that much into account when you're forecasting a storm as a category one or a category two, when it starts to make its landfall? Yeah, it's absolutely important for you and me that that 5 or 6 mile per hour is a rounding error. But for the general public, going from a cat one to a cat two represents a massive step in their perception of the risk of the storm. So clearly, as a physical scientis, you're sort of balancing this this need to sort of, you know, get it right, get it perfect with this need to communicate in a way that people understand and resonate with and doesn't cause unnecessary panic. So you're always sort of, you know, sort of juggling, you know, dealing with that tug and pull, I mean, in this case, you know, we got we have no evidence that it made it across that Cat two threshold. But we've got an airplane in there right now, you know, still investigating the storm. Hopefully it stays a category one, but, yeah, you hit on. What is the number one challenge for you and me both? It's not the forecasting. Everybody assumes the forecasting is the most challenging part. It's figuring out how to convey that forecast in a way that resonates with people and helps them to make, you know, make good decisions. Yeah. And because a lot of times, people just look at that number. Is this a cat one or a cat two because a cat one I do this and a cat two I do this. But as you have said earlier, it's not that easy. All these storms are different. I always say that every hurricane has its own personality and that its threats that will bring. So tell me about Francine. Tell me that what personality that that storm has and what's going to hit hardest in Louisiana. You know, Francine, for now, I mean, the story hasn't been written yet. It's being written. The story hasn't been written yet, you know, based off the forecast of what we think is going to happen, it's going to be a water storm. And for South Louisiana, this is not a typical almost all their storms are big water events. Just because they're so low lying flat and in flood prone, but what I fear might happen and what, you know, people in Louisiana might not anticipate because they are so fixated on the Saffir-Simpson scale is this long tail of a hazard that could last well after landfall. If we do end up with power outages and people sort of overdoing it, heat exhaustion, you know, you're working through the cleanup and sort of overdoing it in this oppressive heat. All right. As I mentioned, Jamie and I, we get to see each other in some of these workshops and, and conferences that we go to. I'm excited to see you again. Sometime when we're not talking about an active storm, but it's good to touch base with you again this afternoon. I appreciate your insight. I mean, take care. All right. Up next, we're going to get back over and talk about what Francine is doing right now with Michelle, with meteorologist Ramesh Shay. Well, Francine is a whopper of a hurricane out there in the Gulf, and it could actually strengthen a little bit over the next few hours before making landfall, probably between about 4 to 7 p.m. this afternoon. And evening. At this point, it's about 95 miles to the southwest of Morgan City, Louisiana. It's about 150 miles southwest of New Orleans. You can see New Orleans right there, Baton Rouge, New Iberia. And you can also see that fairly well defined eye and those thunderstorms that continue to pop up and strengthen in that eye wall, that center of circulation starting to push very close to that middle Louisiana Gulf Coast. Here's the latest with Francine. At this point, a strong category one hurricane with 90 mile per hour winds. And it has picked up some speed today. It's now racing to the northeast around 17mph. That pressure has been dropping and we are expecting the potential for this to strengthen into a category two hurricane just before landfall. So if that were to happen, of course, that would make all of the impacts even worse. But notice the official forecast by 7 p.m. has Francine making that landfall with winds right around 90mph. Of course, that warm, deep water of the Gulf of Mexico helps to fuel these tropical systems. So once they lose that and they roll onto land, they start to kind of lose steam and weaken. So of course, as we go into the next couple of days, Thursday morning, Francine already down to a 45 mile per hour tropical storm. Then it's going to roll right up towards the Memphis area. And that's likely when it starts to kind of fall apart. That's going to be Thursday into Friday down to a tropical depression on Thursday. And then by Friday, just a plain old remnant low as it falls apart right around the Memphis area. But we've got to get through today because today, of course, Francine will bring significant impacts to much of Louisiana. So I want to show you this graphic. This is our exclusive Fox model futurecast. This of course tracks that weather into the future hour by hour. So let me break it down for you and show you exactly what we're expecting. We are talking about a landfalling hurricane, likely for this evening, in fact, right around 5 p.m. notice where that eye is located. It is right along that Louisiana Gulf Coast, very close to the New Iberia area, and getting close to Baton Rouge. So I think Baton Rouge will likely have some pretty severe impacts from Francine as this hurricane makes landfall. You can also see the deep Reds and oranges and yellows that is some super heavy rain. We're talking about the potential for maybe 5 to 10in of rain for Baton Rouge. Even over towards the New Orleans area. Some very heavy rain likely falling, and that is going to bring a significant flood risk as we go through this evening and tonight, heading into this evening, futurecast, our Fox model futurecast around 8:00 showing still all of that heavy rain. And of course you've got to think about the hurricane force winds that will likely be rolling through Baton Rouge, maybe parts of New Orleans. So it certainly will be a mess. A dangerous scenario. Hopefully folks there have taken cover and they're ready for this. They are prepared and they are in shelter in place and ready for this storm to roll through as we go into tomorrow morning. Of course, it will start to get a little bit weaker, but that heavy rain and tornado threat will still be with us as it pushes farther inland. Notice by Thursday afternoon, 2 p.m, it's starting to roll up towards the Memphis area, and that's kind of where it will fall apart by Friday and Saturday. But it is going to be a very severe situation as far as this storm, this hurricane pushing into the Louisiana area. In fact, I want to show you this graphic. This is win probability. This is showing the chance for tropical storm force winds. And it is a large area. Fortunately, it doesn't include us here in Houston. It does not include you in Galveston, but much of the Louisiana area going to be dealing with tropical storm force winds and even hurricane force winds, likely from new Iberia to Baton Rouge and over to New Orleans. So it's going to be a big wind threat. But like I said, we are fortunate we are on that clean side. Western side, and we are out of that risk for those tropical storm force winds. Also, let me show you the peak storm surge for our area still down around the Bolivar Peninsula for parts of Galveston and other coastal communities, there's still the risk for maybe 1 to 2ft of storm surge. But that is not going to be the case for Louisiana. Up to ten feet of storm surge, where Francine makes landfall. So a whopper of a hurricane. We are tracking it closely, and we want to hear from you. Do you have some weather questions to ask us? Do you want to know about what's going on with this tropical system or any other weather questions? Comment with your weather questions for me and also for JD and we would like to answer those Burmecia. Thank you. Let's bring in Anthony Antoine to our chat. We are covering Hurricane Francine and it's made its way past Houston, but now it is heading towards Louisiana as a category one. And that is actually where we're going to find our Sherman Desselle. He's in Morgan City, where that thing looks like it is headed straight towards you guys out there. Sherman Yeah. Good evening Caroline. Well good afternoon rather. It's kind of hard to tell what time of the day it is when weather gets this, this choppy. So we're in Morgan City, which is about an hour and a few minutes south of Lafayette. We've been hearing this area being, an emphasis when it comes to landfall. And the, the effects that we're going to see from Francine, I'm going to give you a little bit more of an idea of what these people deal with on a regular basis. So this is the Atchafalaya River, okay? This feeds into the Gulf, but just, to the side of here are two bodies of water, two lakes, local lakes. I want to say it's Flat Lake. And, and one more, one more lake. Not, not too far away, but then, you know, you got the Gulf, right, we've been hearing this wind rip through these two bridges. The Long Island bridge and the bridge, and so it's definitely picking up. We've been seeing people out and about just kind of not not really out. And about, but coming out here, just seeing what's going on. They always come and check this area because this is kind of like their downtown central area. Right. Take a look at this, come over here. Chandler, I want you to see you see that big silver? That's a floodgate for the people who aren't familiar with what that might look like, we're looking at it's about maybe 15, 20ft, and all those floodgates are closed. And on the way up here, coming from Lafayette, we saw a lot of flood protection systems that are closed. If it wasn't a floodgate, it was more of like a system that would call for the water to reverse, to protect those low lying areas if they start to see those storm surges. That's just to make sure that those areas, those flat areas don't get take on as much water as they could if things get too bad out here. But again, this is the Atchafalaya. This is a kind of a place where people get an idea of what it looks like, and when they know, it's time to kind of just go and go in the house and, and wait for things to pass. So there's still a little while, especially with backing up with what our storm team said about the time frame on when we can expect to see these storms and also a good indicator is when you stop seeing those birds flying around, that's when, you know, you probably should just go and hunker down somewhere. But right now, a lot of people are just kind of waiting around. Caroline Wow. Hey, Sherman what's up man? This is Anthony Antoine kind of joining the coverage here now. And, let's get a sense of, like, the folks out there. Obviously the shot. We're not seeing many people out at all if anyone. But do you get a sense of folks are just kind of adhering? Is there a curfew? I would imagine that's in place right now down there, here. No a lot of people just kind of know the law of the land, right, you know, they they, they just know when it's time to just, to chill out. We've seen a couple of police officers doing their rounds every, every 30 minutes to an hour. A lot of people just know it's not really time to just, kind of just go out and see things after a while. But because this is not, this is not like a strong, strong cat. 2 or 3, you'll see a few people at least in my experience, dealing with storms in Louisiana. You'll see people out just kind of looking around, but not out, just enjoying the day out really just looking at the conditions. And when they start to deteriorate, you'll see less people outside. But this is the area where people come to just enjoy the weather. You know, it's around this time of the year in Louisiana. If it's not raining, it's really hot. So this is kind of a break because there's a wind, it's a little chilly, a little bit, you know, some of the nicest weather comes before a storm, ironically. So that's mainly what you see out here is people just kind of taking a look at things and praying for the best. Really. Well, Sherman, that was actually going to be my next question was about the wind. I can see behind you. The water is moving and I just wanted to know kind of what the difference in the wind has been since you've been standing out there, because we have been reporting that this storm is going to bring 90 mile per hour winds to Louisiana. So what are you feeling and noticing at this point? Yeah, I know that wind is picking up. Let's let's go over here. You might hear my accent come out. But you see that right there. You see that flag? That's a good indication of how much that wind is picking up. That's when you when you start seeing festival flags, kind of, you know, moving uncontrollably like that. That's when you know that that wind is starting to pick up. We've seen a couple of little small palm trees, uproot over here towards the top right, the branches right here. We've seen a little bit of a bit of that, but nothing, nothing too dramatic. We have seen that wind pick up in the in the two hours that we've been in this particular spot. And Sherman, you grew up in Louisiana, but you were more northern in Alexandria. I mean, what was it like when storms would like this would come through for you and your family? Were you far enough away that you didn't see quite the impacts? Like we're seeing now? Yeah You know, what's funny is most of the time, Alexandria, central Louisiana is considered more of a safe haven for people who live in south Louisiana. They kind of go north, they go central Louisiana, or they go a little bit further toward Shreveport, Natchitoches area when they want to dodge a bullet. But Alexandria is not immune, we dealt with Rita. We dealt with Gustav. Gustav came, overnight on a labor Day weekend. We woke up, we were underwater, and because it was a slow storm, it was a slow moving storm, and it just sat on top of Alexandria. And so we dealt with a lot of localized flooding. So, it all depends on what the storm does, and so as a native Alexandrian, when we're watching a storm come into the Gulf of the Louisiana Gulf Coast, if we see it shift toward the east, toward New Orleans, we're a little bit happier about that. But if we see it hitting more of a central track, then we're kind of nervous until it starts to dissipate because it could easily pick up and go all the way up the state, and it can take a couple of days. But in this case, we don't see that, so it all depends really. What? The storm. You know what what JD said earlier kind of kind of summarizes it well. Every storm has its own little personality. We can predict what a cat one or cat two will do, but at the end of the day, it's going to do what it wants to do, and so with the perfect combination that that determines the type of storm that you might deal with. So to answer your question, that was a long answer to the question. But in Alexandria, we saw less storms. We knew that South Louisiana would bear the brunt of these storms, but I have so many friends and family members in this region and living in New Orleans, I know what to expect a little bit, but at the same time, the storms will do what they want to do. Well. And I feel like every time a large storm or a hurricane is heading towards Louisiana, specifically New Orleans, we all know what happened in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina. Could you bring me back to that point? Sherman, I know you were pretty young back then, but I know that. I mean, people were feeling the impacts of Katrina all over Louisiana, not just specifically New Orleans, which was devastated. And it kind of just makes you nervous that something like this is heading in their direction. Yeah. Well thankfully we don't have to compare this particular storm event to anything like Katrina. Katrina changed the lives of New Orleanians forever. They're still impacts of Katrina being felt in New Orleans right now, not just structurally, but culturally, it changed the entire people. There's generation. There's a generation of people who were impacted by Katrina the minute they were born, I was in college in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and I met a lot of friends, lifelong friends now who are from that region. They were there because of Katrina. But I'll tell you, I was in New Orleans during Hurricane Ida, and that wasn't that long ago. That was just a few years ago. Hurricane Ida displaced a lot of people for a little while. Our power was out. I had damage in my house. My family was evacuated in North Louisiana for about a week and a half because we didn't have power. I stayed at my news station for a week, and in a couple days. So, you know, I know what it's like to not only cover a Louisiana storm, but to actually deal with it as a native Louisianan, it's no joke, and you also get to see, unfortunately, the societal differences, you know, people who are able to relocate for a few days, go get a hotel or go vacate somewhere, they have those luxuries. But a lot of people just simply don't leave simply because they can't afford to leave. You got to pay gas, you got to get lodging. You got to get food. A lot of people don't have that extra money to get up and move. So that's when you're able to see, unfortunately, how well some people are doing versus how well they're not, but out here in, in this part of Louisiana, everybody just does better. They do the best with what they, what they got. You know, that's just kind of how they are. They're resilient people. They don't like to be told that or be called that. But they are. We're resilient people out here. You know, even when you talk about Houston, you see the Louisiana influence here in Houston itself. A lot of folks who lived through Katrina and all those other storms have a very strong presence here in the Houston area as well. Sherman, thank you so much. Right now, the storm, like Misha said, about 95 miles south there southwest of Morgan City. It is in the Gulf right now picking up some steam right now, a category one. But you're going to start to see those outer bands make more of an impact where Sherman is and those surrounding areas. Sherman, thank you so much. Stand by though. We want to go to some questions here from some viewers. Just kind of want to do a Q&A and answer what the folks really want to know, because we're going to continue to cover this for several hours now as it continues to make landfall. We're going to start here with Kevin. He says. Do you think Sherman is safe where he is in Morgan City? Should he run for cover? First and foremost, Sherman, stand by. But I want to say, you know, at the station, I think it's safe to say I don't. I don't think I know we take the necessary precautions. Definitely any any time we are even discussing our plans to move forward about how we're going to cover this for you, we make sure that first and foremost, safety is the number one concern for Sherman Desselle right there. Now, along with his photographer Chandler, earlier this morning, we had Shelby Rose providing coverage for Morgan City as well. So we definitely take the necessary precautions. And let's go back out to Sherman. Sherman, what do you think, man? Kevin says, do you think you're safe out there? Yeah. No, Kev, I'm all right, man. I'm all right. If it wasn't safe, I would tell the people at the station to find something else to do or talk about. And because I got to get out of here, so. No. We're fine, we are fine. I think if it was a problematic. First off, you wouldn't see as many people out here, and we would be ducking for cover, but. No, we're fine, thank you. Kevin, I appreciate your concern. We're good. And I just want to bring up. I just assumed, Sherman, that you were in 2005. About in middle school. You were in college. So. Compliments to you, man. Yeah. College. Yeah Compliments to you. We appreciate it. I mean, you can say I was in middle school. I can be a little bit younger. That's fine. We're young when hurricane no. He was in college, so, I just thought that we were the same age here. So. Compliments to you, Sherman. All right. And now as we start to see. All right, Sherman, be safe out there, man. All right. And, JD, when we talk about this storm right. You see, as those outer bands start to make landfall and things get closer, we're obviously going to have a discussion about repositioning, possibly Sherman, even because that strong that storm is going to get even stronger when it makes landfall. Yeah. I had to chuckle, though, when somebody told me we were going to ask if the question was, Is Sherman safe in Morgan City? And I thought, is Clark Kent safe? Walking down the street at night? I think I think we're okay with Sherman to sell wherever we want to send him. He's going to be all right. But you're you're right. Though we do take those crews out in the field. We're very serious, and we have plans in place for retreating and going into safety. When things get at its worst. It's obviously not at its worst right now. So we're continuing to prepare. And yes, we will move crews accordingly to position them on where they need to be. I will say this, I do expect Morgan City to see 60 mile an hour winds. Probably just below hurricane strength as that. I will track a little bit further over to the east. Well, JD, we have another question here from Abby. How much flooding could we expect in Houston? What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, as far as the flooding goes here in Houston, we're not going to see any flooding here in Houston, along the coast in Galveston, some of the Fox 26 viewers are going to have some water that temporarily displaces maybe a little roadway here or there, Leslie de la saw was showing us earlier some video of some homes that are right on the bay that have some of those issues that they're dealing with. But Houston, the city of really any you get a little bit off of the coast at all and there's going to be minimal impacts. We're just looking at some isolated thunderstorms. Yeah. So let's go to real quick. Let's talk about the coast a little bit. Because you were talking about that yesterday giving folks a heads up how to prepare for today, especially if they're along that line that coastline. That's right. The good news for us as the track of Francine continues to shift to the east day by day, our flood threat really started to go down. So really, for the rest of today, likely less than an inch of rain for Houston and for our coastal communities. But it's this area behind me that's going to have the huge, significant threat for flooding. We're talking about maybe 5 to 10in of rain with isolated amounts up to a foot for parts of Louisiana, including Morgan City, where Sherman is New Iberia, Baton Rouge, even over towards New Orleans, several inches of rain. Here's the other threat that we have of course, we've got that tornado watch so significant flooding there. But to answer your question, not much rain expected for Houston, but that's a good thing. We've got the clouds. We've got the cooler temps, a nice little breeze, a few sprinkles, a little bit of light rain. It's actually refreshing because those 90s are going to be back soon, so enjoy it. All right. Thank you so much. We'll take one more here before we take a break and look at something else. Maggie says, do you think this will be our last hurricane scare? This is, I would assume, a tough one to answer. Right, because this has been forecast to be a very busy hurricane season. Well, Maggie, I wish I could tell you. That's it. We were hit by a barrel. Nothing else is coming for the rest of the season. But actually, yesterday was the peak. Historically of hurricane season, which is September 10th. Today is September 11th, so this is usually the busiest, most active period. Now, I can't tell you for sure that we're going to have another system heading our way. I can't tell you for sure that it's going to be extremely quiet. I do think we will have several more systems develop between now and the end of Hurricane season on November 30th, but of course, the big question is, will they hit the Houston area? That is what we will have to wait and see and watch for. But there is always a chance. That's why we tell you when there's a lull in the action, that's the best time to make sure you're prepared. Make sure you know where your insurance papers are. Make sure they're protected. If your house floods, make sure you know your evacuation routes. You always have to be ready because we all know, especially with Beryl, these storms can take a turn at the very last second and head our way. Fortunately, this one took a turn to the east so we don't have to worry about Francine. But back on July 8th, we saw just how quickly things can go downhill. When these storms do take a turn. When we had those 100 mile per hour winds in some spots and also over a foot of rain for parts of Houston. So yes, it was a mess. I know some of you are likely still cleaning up, but for now nothing heading towards Houston, but we'll have to watch it closely over the next few weeks and next few months. All right Ramesh and JD, thank you so much for helping us answer those questions from our viewers. Keep on coming with those questions. We really want to get those answers for you because that's what you want to know. We want to make sure you have the information you need. All right. Thanks. You two. Now we want to take it live back out to our reporter, Leslie Delasbour, who's been in Galveston. She is covering the storm surge near the west end that happened today. What's going on now? Well, right now, it's pretty clear, actually. The sun is shining and there are a few clouds out here, and it's a nice breeze, but this is typically what we see after a storm has come through. So Miss Jessie Ann here, we met with her earlier and she showed us, you know, the lower half of her home here that was filled with water. But since that last live shot, that water has kind of gone down. Right. But, Miss Jessie, I want you to kind of explain to the viewers, you know, I explained to them what it looks like right now. But last night, when the storm was grazing through Galveston, what did you see? It came in real quiet, but the tide was high before I went to bed. About 1030 by 4:30 a.m, and it was at least 17in on ground level. It went inside our Bay camp, which is our little fishing camp, of course. Luckily I was prepared because we go through this any time that there's a storm out there, it doesn't even have to hit Galveston to get water to high tides. Wow. So and you mentioned that it went into your fishing camp here. Can you kind of lead the way for us? I want you to I want to take you guys with us. So you guys can see. Now this door right here was closed, right? So all that water and she's going to show you here in a minute. But all that water came in under this door here. And again tell us exactly how high this water got. So if you notice we're pretty prepared for things like that to happen because the washer and dryer is up on this two foot pedestal and everything else is put into the bathroom, which is up two foot. So everything we see is it just seeping up the wall about 19in. So not a lot of damage if you know it's coming and you can get to it before anything happens. Yeah. And explain to me this room was kind of cool. You were telling me this off camera earlier. Explain to me what this room is and what would have happened if someone was in here and this happened. It's Terry's Bay camp. So they camp out here in cots, large cots, and they fish all night, sleep all day, usually right off my pier. And if they were sleeping in this, that came in, they'd woke up to the 19in of water under their cots. So, you know, they would have just probably been okay, because, I mean, if you're camping, you're camping. Yeah. And if we can, let's see if we can walk this way just a little bit. I'm going to step in front of you here. I apologize. Explain to me these watermarks and explain to me kind of what this what this means here. So yeah. So when the water comes in it's going to seep up. This is a cedar siding. It's going to seep up. So one inch is just as much damage does just as much damage as one foot. Two foot. So if it was inside sloshing around any you're looking at that damage right there. Gotcha. And again I kind of want you to explain now, the first live shot that we did with you a few minutes ago, the water was probably up to my ankles, but now it's barely touching my toes. So explain kind of how that water is going back out into the bay and what that is, right? So when I went to bed last night, I saw all the storms spinning, spins in a clock counterclockwise. And as it does, it's taking the clean side of the water and throwing it up on our bay as it passes Galveston, it gets past us. Those outer bands will drag the water out of our bay so now it's taking the water back out of the bay and going on up north. So that's how you see the water come in. You see the water go out. Gotcha. Well, Miss Jessie Ann has lived here for so many years, and she's an expert on the West End and Bay Harbor. What is your message? I think, to people when who may be new to the area, you know, unlike yourself, when these kind of storms come through, whether it's a category one through four or even just a tropical storm or depression. True. Yeah. You just need to make sure you are prepared. So you need, you know, of course, water's something electrical or make sure you have lights and things like that. If the electricity was to go out, you would not want to be walking in this water. But make sure your things are above ground because it can sneak up on you. I don't purchase a lot of high end stuff because it won't last long. It's either going to rust, rot, or float away. Perfect. Well, you heard it here first from the expert herself. She's pretty calm. She's lived here forever. So this water. When I first got here, I was a little nervous, even in my boots. But for her, she was out here in sandals. So we're all good here. Like I said, the weather is. It's sunny. There are a few clouds out here today, but pretty calm and whatnot here in Galveston. Back to you all in the studio. Leslie, can you please ask Jessie and if she'll stand by for a second? We know that Louisiana is preparing for Francine. We had a category one Hurricane Beryl back in July. Can she give us a little bit of insight of what it was like there, where you're standing when Hurricane Beryl hit us a few months ago. So you and I were talking earlier about Hurricane Beryl, right. Explain to me kind of what happened to your home here. Did you have this same water damage or water coming seeping in through your doors? Rather, yes. So hurricane or what was it? Tropical Depression Alberto came first and Alberto came as a tropical depression. So it's very slow and low. It rose. Sit here about three days and took away a lot of stuff that I didn't get up in time. But when Alberto Beryl came, Beryl came in really high and fast, high winds. And it was beating the water against the walls enough that it was knocking things off the shelves. So even though you have them on shelves, they may not be safe, biggest tip is never have a gas can, because in the first storm a gas can tipped over and the whole downstairs smelled like gas until it recedes. So it's very important that you keep your safety stuff out. Yeah. Gotcha. And the water you said was a little bit higher during Beryl. Right. Okay. About 19in. Wow About 19in. You heard it here first. 19in. Caroline Anthony back to you. All right. That was a great, a great report there, really interesting from the Bay side and a great description there from Jessie. And as far as how that water first gets pushed in to Galveston Bay, and that rises up and creates problems. And then as that storm continues to move further towards Louisiana, that counterclockwise rotation, the winds start to pull that water out of the bay. So they might even end up with like a lower tide when this is all over, depending on how much winds that we have overall. So just a great explanation there of what's happening in Galveston. But it's also key to note there that things are receding. Now, things are starting to get minimal as far as any more impacts. Even along the coast. And we've seen that with our coastal flood warning being dropped to a coastal flood advisory at this point, although it is extended all the way through Thursday at 7 p.m. All right, let's switch gears. Just a little bit, no pun intended, because I'm going to talk about Hurricane gear test. I always enjoy bringing you lots of great products, hopefully getting you to think about your hurricane preparations as we kind of review something together. But Heather Sullivan came to me in August and was like, we ought to do something together. And I thought, that's a fantastic idea. I'm glad you thought of that. And here's what we did. All right, welcome to the hurricane gear test. Or maybe it's a Sullivan smart sense. Either way it's going. We're going to be fun talking about hurricane preparedness, which is what I'm always excited about. And you always like to talk about saving some money. Yeah. You know, we've all been through Barrow. We know what it is now to go without power. But, you know, budgets are so tight. So we want to help you get ready for a lot less money. And we're going to focus on the five categories that I always talk about when getting ready for hurricanes. They're kind of a short list, but they can really kind of dive in deep. It's going to start with food and water. You're going to need a good light source, like a flashlight or a lantern. Everyone has power, needs the minimum for everybody is going to be a phone charger. But some of us need even more than that. And then a first aid kit. Yeah, and let's dive into it. Because right now everybody's buzzing. You know, about these ultimate apocalypse dinner kits that you can get at Costco. And other places. This one in particular, Readywise, has 150 different servings of freeze dried food, sells for about $100. You can get it right now at Costco for about 80, but I also wanted to show you, let's just do a little grocery shopping in case you don't want to have to add that you have to add a lot of water to the right. Sure. Yeah water is definitely going to be a big focus when you're dealing with dehydrated food. I like the idea of just stocking up on some of these more traditional nonperishable items. Yeah So what I did was I went shopping for a family of four for three days, and for the nonperishable essentials, I spent about $57. And then right before the storm, you can still go to the store again and get some perishables that will last a few days. We're talking about apples, oranges, cucumbers, tomatoes, things that can sit out. I spent another $18 some bread, but so $75 got got me through three days. Yeah. And remember, don't be the last one in line at the store though, because those not those, those perishable items are also going to kind of thin out pretty quick. But you did a great job on your shopping there. And then you, you got a few other things here on a budget. I like the lights that you got because you've got a lot of them here. And the batteries are included. And it was pretty inexpensive. Yeah, the batteries are in there. It was about $12. Gives you multiple lights. You can set out around the house or use as you need. All right. And then next up was the phone charger. This is a very economical way to get it done. You lose some of the convenience. But again you're just going to have to figure out how to make it work when we have disaster, right? If you know if your car is working, you can charge your phone in the car. So these things run about 6 to $30, or you can buy an emergency cell phone charger for as low as eight on up to about 100. All right. And the last thing on the list was a first aid kit. I always encourage you to look for one that has scissors inside of it, because it has a lot of other uses besides just medical needs when you have a disaster. And I also like first aid kits that have a cold compress. So I'm impressed that you found one. Yeah, that has that right. Break it and it gets cold. It's an instant ice pack. How cool is that? Totally right. We're ready. We're ready for any emergency here. So we've got a full list of all of these ideas for you on Fox 26. Houston.com with Sullivan Smartsense I'm Heather Sullivan and if you want to look for my hurricane gear, just make sure and go to YouTube and search for meteorologist John Dawson. All right. Let's get back to Hurricane Francine because we're really just a few hours away from that landfall. Likely going to be very close to the Morgan City area, New Iberia. It is going to be rolling up into some of these locations eventually. Baton Rouge and New Orleans will be pretty hard hit as well. We've got a tornado watch in place. You can see all of this super heavy rain. Those darker colors indicating some of the very heavy burst of tropical downpours in this and this. Of course, continues to be what is a part of that eye wall. That's going to be some of the most intense thunderstorms and notice it getting very close to shore. So I think over the next couple of hours we can officially say that Francine has made landfall. So we are monitoring that closely, but already starting to see multiple flood warnings, flood advisories. And there's that threat for tornadoes. Here is the latest advisory with Hurricane Francine. As of 3 p.m. 90 mile per hour winds, it is still a category one, but it is very close to a category two. If it were to just get a little bit stronger and get up to about 96mph, it would be a category two hurricane. So there's still a possibility that could happen over the next 1 to 2 hours. So let's put this into motion and you'll see that as we go into the future, Francine shifts to the north and likely makes that landfall over the next few hours, likely by 5 or 6 p.m. by 7 p.m. Still forecast to be a 90 mile per hour category one hurricane as it is getting very close to Lafayette, Baton Rouge, and it should pass to the west of New Orleans. But it's still going to be a big rainmaker for New Orleans. Of course, there's going to be that storm surge risk along the coast and that threat for widespread damaging wind gusts similar to what we saw here with Beryl. In fact, it may be a little bit worse because this hurricane is a tad bit stronger. Of course, as we go through the next couple of days, it will push farther inland, weakening to a tropical storm by Thursday morning and then up towards Memphis, kind of falling apart and losing steam as it is over land now. And it kind of winds down fairly quickly. By Thursday evening and Friday down to a tropical depression. And then a remnant low. But we've still got a lot of impacts to talk about. In fact, Francine poses a huge flood threat for really the majority of the lower half of Louisiana. Even southern portions of Mississippi. That's where we're going to have the biggest threat for some of that heavy rain, maybe as much as 5 to 10in of rain. So of course, when we look at the flash flood risk, notice that the Houston area, not in a flash flood risk at all, but just hop over to Louisiana and we go to the red. And the red is not a good place to be because that is a super high moderate category. Three out of four risk for that significant flash flooding. So that does include new Iberia, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and even portions of southern Mississippi. In fact, that goes all the way up to Jackson, Mississippi. So this is certainly going to be a tropical system, a hurricane with widespread impacts impacting millions across multiple states. As far as that forecast rain. Notice that swath of purple here getting close to new Orleans. Now that's up to ten inches of rainfall. But if you hop back to the Houston area we're in the dark blue. And that is less than an inch. So there's a big gradient from what we're expecting here to what folks in Louisiana along the coast are expecting. And farther inland. That's where the big flood threat will be off to our east. So of course, we're monitoring things closely. We do still have a coastal flood advisory for our coastal regions, for the Southeast Texas area, but we are not expecting any significant impacts. Notice the wind gusts potential. Baton Rouge New Orleans hurricane force winds can't be ruled out, so it's going to be a mess there. Of course, we are tracking it closely as Francine will likely be making landfall over the next 1 to 2 hours. All right, Misha, thank you so much. Let's get back to these questions. This one coming from Casey. It says is this a unique path for a hurricane? What pushed it towards Louisiana? This is a great question, Casey. I've seen a lot of folks saying similar things on social media. Right. Because everybody was kind of nervous. What is this storm going to do, especially after Hurricane Beryl? And when that made impact? So let's get back to JD and Misha, who wants to take this one guys? Yeah, I can talk about that a little bit. I think I was going to say me, me, me. But you can go ahead. All right JD go ahead. Well yeah I was just going to say, to answer your question. No, I wouldn't say this is a unique path for a hurricane to take. There were certainly some steering components that sort of led up to this. When you've got a system that forms in the Gulf, there is a good chance this time of the year that it could make that track, that that sort of southwest to northeast. Again, those are very general terms track. And the reason being because cold fronts that are coming in in September, if you'll remember, you know, the end of last week, Friday, we had that front come in and really leave us with a spectacular looking weekend here in Southeast Texas. Well, that boundary hung around and didn't really stay a front, really. That long, but it kind of gave something for that storm for Francine to bump up against and kind of move a little bit in that direction. So not a unique path, but maybe not the most common path either. Very interesting. JD thank you for that explanation. Now we have a question here from Brandon. Were you surprised how quick Francine formed in the Gulf? Let's give this one to meteorologist remission shade. Well actually, Brandon, I wasn't really surprised at all in fact, we were thinking. Francine, what kind of get her act together even quicker? Because Francine is moving over the Gulf of Mexico and all season long, those Gulf of Mexico waters have been super warm at points, almost abnormally warm well into the 80s. Water temps in the low 90s. At times the water is very warm. It's very deep, and it acts as fuel for these tropical systems. So when you get a storm, a tropical depression, tropical storm or hurricane developing in the Gulf, it usually doesn't take long to kind of blow up. And get going. But Francine was actually interacting with a frontal boundary that had kind of been draped near the Gulf Coast for several days. So I think that kind of hindered it from getting a little bit stronger, quicker. But once it started to get its act together and tighten up and develop that well-defined center of circulation, it really got going. So we saw from yesterday, today it strengthened quite a bit. That pressure was dropping and now winds are up to 90mph at times. The National Hurricane Center has forecasted it to become a 100 mile per hour category two hurricane. So we're not surprised. But like I said, usually when you get these systems developing in the Gulf, it doesn't take much that water is very warm. It acts as that fuel for these systems, and they can develop and grow and maintain themselves for quite a long period of time and cause a lot of issues for portions of the Gulf Coast. The historic year when it talks about these storms in the forecast, the storms to develop out there in the Gulf. So now let's get back to our Sherman to sell. Remember, he's in Morgan City, one of the places in that path of the storm. He was just mentioning things picking up there. Sherman Yeah, actually, Anthony in the last couple of minutes since you and I were speaking, winds are picking up cloud a little bit more cloud cover. I'll step out just to kind of show you. Now, I'm not trying to mimic a really famous weather guy from a different channel, okay? But I'm just trying to show you that the conditions are definitely starting to deteriorate, we're seeing some winds pick up these trees a little bit. Take a look across the street, though. You know, those those boards, board, you know, businesses boarded up like that. That is very common, especially in this part of Louisiana. So remember what I showed you earlier, the Atchafalaya? It's on the other side of this wall right here. Floodgate is to the right, it's about somewhere between 15 to 20ft high, we've been seeing this garbage can, getting some getting some wind picked up. So it'll make a little banging sound kind of, you know, increase the anxiety a bit, but to be honest with you, this is what was expected in this area, a lot of people are prepared for it. We've been seeing Morgan City Police Department passing by, making their rounds, making sure everybody's good. The biggest thing, though, I forgot this. I buried the lead. There is a curfew now in effect in this parish, in this area, starting at 5:00 until 7:00 tomorrow morning. So I know that was a question that Caroline had earlier. If there was a curfew in this particular area, in this parish, there is a curfew from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. tomorrow morning. That's just to make sure that anybody that's on the road or out and about are essential to being out here. So first responders, people you know, just making sure that things are good and they have the authority to be outside. So that was a question that you guys asked earlier. And it has since changed, since we last spoke back to you. And what about like, Louisiana as a whole, listen, has the governor said anything in terms of any declarations? Yeah. So, in the last couple of days, not only did he, declare a state declaration declaration, but then he he officially asked, President Biden for assistance in this in, in this, weather event. So that's just to make sure that things are in place to where if it does get bad, then the federal systems will already be in place. So the governor has requested that, as far as if it's been received, I'm not sure I will check on that because I don't want to tell you something. That's not true. But the state declaration is already in place, and he has already asked for a declaration from the white House. Sherman, I have another question for you. Not sure if you know this at this time. Were there any mandatory evacuations put in place for New Orleans or Baton Rouge, or any of the other areas that are going to be getting the brunt of Francine? So yesterday before the storm tracked more east yesterday, the Cameron Parish area was under evacuation. Mandatory evacuation. That place was a ghost town by yesterday morning, because that is an area that got hit hard. Really hard during previous hurricanes, Hurricane Laura that's closer towards the Lake Charles area where that where Cameron Parish is. That was in route to here. Coming from Houston, but in this particular area, no mandatory evacuations in this particular area. Caroline Let you go here. One one last question. The area where you're standing is that area likely going to see several inches or feet of water? How bad do we think that that area where you are in Morgan City, along the coast, is going to get? Well, definitely, wind storm surge is a concern. Localized flooding? Definitely a concern where we are particularly, they won't see that huge of a of a of a problem because these flood gates right here, these 15 to 20 inch, 20ft tall flood gates are right here, but in low lying areas, because it is an area that's surrounded by water. There's a couple of lake lakes not too far away. And the Gulf of Mexico is not that far from here either. Those areas could possibly be problematic for sure. We'll be checking in on those and keeping up to speed with all of that. All right, Sherman to sell about 68 miles south of Lafayette in Morgan City, just awaiting for the very close arrival of Hurricane Francine. And it's looking to be a category one storm. So, Sherman, please be careful out there. We'll be checking back in with you as the day goes on. All right, bring in Misha shade now. All right, Sherman, thank you. But we're bringing you back in here because right now, category one. But the fuel is definitely there in the water as far as it potentially getting to a category two. Yeah. The actual National Hurricane Center forecast has been wobbling back and forth between Francine making landfall as either a strong category one hurricane at 90mph, or a lower end category two hurricane at 100mph. So regardless, it's going to cause widespread damage. Whether it's a strong cat one, weaker cat two, it's going to be a big flood threat. There's the storm surge threat. Like I said, there's a tornado watch. So multiple tornadoes possible. Just a lot of concerns for a big portion of the Louisiana Gulf Coast. I mean, we're talking what was that ten miles per hour between Cat one and Cat two? Yeah. So that that that's really a wash. But the impact is still there. That's right. On the Saffir-Simpson scale, actually, a category one would be from 74mph to 95mph. So six miles per hour or more. That's a category two, right? Right, right. And just from looking at the map where Lafayette is, New Orleans, you can't see Baton Rouge on this model here. But I'm not too familiar with Louisiana. But it seems like this is a large range of area that is going to feel some real heavy impacts from Francine. Right I showed a map earlier that showed the tropical storm force wind potential and it was spreading almost across just about all of the Louisiana Gulf Coast. So that's wind gusts around 39 to 73mph. Of course, where the core of that eyewall pushes in, that's where we could have those wind gusts of hurricane force. So that would be 74mph or greater. So that's where we're likely going to have the most intense wind damage. We're talking about structural damage, widespread power outages similar to what we experienced in the middle of Hurricane Beryl. And I think it's just from going through Beryl and just knowing what hurricanes are like here in Houston, assuming it's similar in Louisiana, people's lives are really at risk here, and especially with the flooding, we see it here in Houston. They're about to go through a similar situation that we went through in July, and that that's very unsettling. And it's a lot to look out for. That's right. Back with barrel over a million folks around Houston without power at one point. It was a rough go. And you know, listen and I got to tell you guys on social media, you probably seen it on your social media as well. When I tell you people were just listening to every word we had to say about this storm because like you guys mentioned, we got that cold front that kind of bumped this storm, this direction, which, you know, for some folks, they weren't paying attention to the weather. They just kind of saw it initially coming towards us. But that bump in that cold front made a big difference. Yeah, I was a little concerned. Yeah, a little nervous over the weekend when I saw that initial cone of uncertainty come out. I was thinking, oh my goodness, are we going to get hit twice in one season by two hurricanes, please. No. Right Of course it started to shift east. We had that trough sitting there and that kind of helped to pick it up and take it on out of here, kind of get that little wobble, wobble and shake it, shake it and wobble, wobble, shake it, shake it out of Houston. It's like we haven't even recovered from barrel fully yet. There are still power lines down where I live. There's still damage to roofs and buildings. I'm still not back where I am supposed to live because of damage. So having that threat over the weekend of this potentially coming to Houston, we're so thankful it's not. But obviously we're right where our good fortune. Yeah, of course. Bad news for Louisiana. So our thoughts are certainly with everyone dealing with Hurricane Francine in Louisiana. But of course like I said, it's a fortunate thing for us. It did miss us. This time, but we've still got a little bit more of hurricane season to get through. It's all the way through the end of November, so don't let your guard down. We got missed by Francine, but there could be more. So keep it here. Of course, we're going to keep you updated on the hurricane season. All right. So JD also standing by here working with us. We continue to follow Francine JD I got a question that just popped up as Ramsha was talking here. Talk about the size of this storm like in your expertise over the years. Is this a larger storm or is it just one of those more small, compact, dense storms moving through? You know, I'm going to call it a medium storm and not to try to just sort of avoid the question or anything, but it's not overly large. And again, it's not super compact either in its size. When we get this close to a landfall, the National Hurricane Center begins to give hourly updates. And so we haven't had a chance really to share this 3 p.m. update as far as what is happening right now with Francine. So want to take a minute to talk about it a little bit. And we're going to start with discussion mostly on the winds that are out there. And you can see with our graphics that inland we're not looking at hurricane force winds right now. We're definitely looking at some winds that we're looking at as far as being a little bit of a problem, I'm going to go ahead and ask Max. Three is the storm the graphics that I want to look at? If we can see those, great. You're going to be able to see those winds coming in and that counterclockwise rotation new Orleans right now with sustained winds at 22 miles an hour. And then we're looking at Lafayette at about 14 miles an hour. What I want to talk about as far as the size goes, is right now, that eye that you see there really getting close to its landfall, and it's sort of a larger eye, has 40 miles out from the center are hurricane force winds. So for the very center of that sort of eye and then you were to go out 40 miles, you would be able to feel those hurricane force winds. In other words, those 75 mile an hour winds. Now, if you were to go 115 miles, and that's substantially further, that's where you would have the tropical storm force winds that extend out 115 miles. So talking a little bit about that size, we've got 115 mile per hour, 115 miles worth of tropical storm winds, 40 miles worth of hurricane force winds. But I want to show you some of these winds that we're beginning to see here as this storm moves through from the National Hurricane Center. They've got a couple reports there, one of the oil platforms, and it might be that one that we have labeled there is the shell ship Shoal. That might be the one that they're referencing. But one of the oil platforms that was on the east side of the center recently had 74 mile an hour sustained winds with a gust of 92 miles an hour. Now, that is not at the surface. That's up off of the ground. So those numbers are not exactly what you would see if we were standing there. But also there was another spot out there that near the, the, the coast, Eugene Island, that also had a 54 mile an hour wind and had a peak gust at 70 miles an hour. So as I mentioned, they'll continue to keep these updated. The other thing, just to sort of let our friend Sherman Desselle know they've officially identified this center being about 60 miles away from Morgan City, Louisiana. And remember those hurricane force winds extend out 40 miles. And so that's just something to kind of keep in mind. I think Sherman is going to be very close to those hurricane force winds once this begins to make landfall. Now, of course, as we know, once the system begins to make landfall, it falls apart very quickly, which is going to be a good thing. But what doesn't stop very quickly is the rainfall. So you can see our our weather prediction Center giving us as excessive rainfall. In other words, flooding threats, high possibility. So that's going to happen for portions of Louisiana extending into Mississippi as well. And we're going to continue to see these storms, the storm make its way onto land and will also bring that storm surge. We have that storm surge warning basically, even around New Orleans, we have this storm surge warning. That's anywhere that we expect a life threatening storm surge that's three feet or higher is where we're looking at that as a possibility. Our satellite imagery really kind of gives us an idea of sort of try to pick out that whole this is our visible satellite. So a lot of times we have all the colors and everything on there. This imagery here is basically if you were just up in space and you could visibly look down this is what you would be seeing right now. So as the sun sets, we'll lose this visibility. But you can see the little bit of lighter area that shows where the eye would be. So it's not super well defined, but you can kind of see down a little bit more to the surface. There on where that eye is. It's a little bit lopsided overall as far as the rainfall is concerned. And we take a look at that tropical satellite as we see that beginning to move forward a little bit more. And the radar really gives us an idea of where those storms are. And this is very close to making its landfall. You can see with our radar imagery that eye that's taking place, this is getting very close to making its landfall. The heavy rain, rain beginning to make its way in as well. And we'll continue to keep an eye on the steering factors that are involved in this are really going to be not as important right now. Things remain very quiet for us over here in the Houston area, and I just wanted to pop up that forecast track one more time before I wrap up as far as where we're expecting this system to go with its path that it's taking, this kind of gives us that idea that it will be making its landfall very soon. As a strong category one hurricane, almost a category two hurricane as it begins to make its landfall. So we're really kind of preparing for the last hour or so before Francine makes its landfall. Let's go ahead and check back in with the folks in the studio. All right, JD, thank you so much. So we're keeping a very close eye on Francine, as you were. If you're mentioning joining us earlier, this is a live look now at Morgan City. Our Sherman Desselle there is on the ground. And remember this community is under a curfew that has been issued here since 11:00 this morning. As you can see, no one in sight, folks really heeding the warning here and hunkering down. Or if they have the luxury of doing so, maybe have found other places to go to stay with friends or family members. Family members as this storm makes its way through this community. But again, overall, Caroline, we are certainly thinking about everyone there in Louisiana. Absolutely flooding, rainfall, storm surge, damaging winds, and even tornado threats are all a concern as we are just about a half hour away from Francine actually making its landfall. We'll be continuing to cover the conditions in Louisiana as the evening goes on. Make sure to follow us on fox26houston.com. You can also download our Fox 26 weather app. And of course, you can watch us by downloading Fox Local for free on your smart TV.