Tropical update: PTC 6 moves through Gulf, expected to become hurricane

We are keeping a close eye on the system in the Gulf of Mexico that should affect Texas in the coming days. Taking a live look in Galveston tonight where storm surge and damaging winds could be a concern in the coming days. Meteorologist Kim Castro is joining me now. So Kim, what's the timeline looking like for all this? Yeah, it's our job to make sure nothing catches us by surprise. So we need you to prepare anytime between Tuesday to Thursday is when we can have impacts. So preparation needs to happen tomorrow. It's gonna be a beautiful day but make sure you remember that while it's sunny, things could shift quite quickly. So two things that I want to highlight here, there's an uncertain track and there's an uncertain intensity. The problem with this is, I don't want you to think because we don't have a definitive time frame or a definitive location that it's not coming to Houston. It's possible that it could right now. The GFS, the American model paints the better scenario for us. The European paints the less favorable scenario. So we'll start with the GFS. This is hinting that this hurricane is going to track a little bit further east. If it does that, it would bring us to the lesser impactful side of the storm, the non dirty side. So we would see some impacts along the coastline but further inland, we'd have the reduced rainfall. Now, the European, if we do see a tracker tracking closer towards the Mexican Texas coastline, then we would have widespread rain. We could have flooding, we could have power outages. Now, if we do see this track closer towards Mexico and clo closer to the Texas coastline, it wouldn't be as intense of a storm. It would have land interaction. However, again, it would track closer to us. So this is the less favorable scenario for Houston. If this starts to lift and get more intensity in the open Gulf, then this could easily undergo rapid intensification and surpass that category one hurricane that's forecasted by the National Hurricane Center. But again, this would push into Louisiana and we would get the left side of the storm which would have lower impacts. We would have lower rainfall. We would have a lower risk for tropical storm force winds. It's really the dirty side, the right side of the storm that has the biggest threat. So I wanna show you right now the cone of uncertainty from the National Hurricane Center timing out the tropical storm development anywhere between the overnight hours to early tomorrow morning, that's when it's expected to gain some intensification. And some organization from there on out the National Hurricane center right now is forecasting a category one hurricane. Remember this could change, this could be a cat two, maybe even a cat three right now. They're highlighting Wednesday as the time frame for landfall in the continental us. Notice the cone includes hous and it includes Louisiana. This could shift, this could push a little further inland for us or it could track further away towards Louisiana. For now. We've got a couple of things to monitor tropical storm watch for the Brownsville area and for the coastal waters just south of us as the system gets closer to us. These tropical storm for watches or warnings are going to continue to perpetuate further up the coastline right now. The chance to see at least tropical storm force winds includes Harris County about a 40 to 50% chance of that. And that stretches all the way into Lake Charles. So a couple of different things that we might be struggling with as we head into the coming work week, prepare for the worst case scenario, regardless of what happens. Tuesday to Thursday is when we have weather impact alert day. So you're extra vigilant, we could see widespread heavy rain. So make sure you are making preparations. So what do you need to do when we see the threat of a hurricane in the area? Make sure you've got your supplies ready, food, non perishable and water. Make sure you've got your medicine, your batteries, your phones charge and you have cash on hand in case we do lose power. Now, today was a beautiful day and I don't want you to think because we saw the, we're not going to see things change quickly. So we made it up to a high of 88. We're at 75. Now this evening is quiet, tomorrow will be quiet and that is a good day for you to make sure you get all your ducks in a row. 68 is going to be the morning, low afternoon. We make it to 78 and then that high 89 remember nice, mostly sunny but prepare your weather impact alert days again. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday for now. It looks like Wednesday is going to be the day that we could potentially have the most activity closer towards the Texas coastline. We'll keep you guys updated. Just make sure that you download the Khou app. We'll send alerts straight to your phone and check back in with Cheetah tomorrow morning. She'll have an update from the National Hurricane Center Marcelino a good week to stay close to the forecast. Thanks, Kim.