Chief Meteorologist David Paul's 7 p.m. Francine update

Hi everybody. David Paul with you here in the Khou 11. Weather center wanted to step in and give you a complete update on what is now tropical storm Francine, but is expected to become hurricane Francine by Tuesday morning and then slide by the upper Texas coast as a category two hurricane winds of 100 or above as we go on a Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning and get you through what we think the impacts are going to be. Now, first of all, what we've done is issue a weather impact alert for Tuesday. This is for all day Tuesday, but the impacts are going to be graduated from maybe some heavy rain on the coast to maybe not much inland depending on the exact track of the system. So all day Tuesday and Tuesday night, weather impact alerts in effect for heavy rain, especially near the coast. Monitor the forecast several times a day. Sometimes these things can change and that in this case, could very much change the impacts to the coast and inland. Now, as we look at our inland forecast for Tuesday, this is for, for Houston, for Harris County, not much we'd have partly to mostly cloudy skies. We might see a little bit of rain later in the afternoon, but rain changes for inland areas tomorrow are not very high. The winds are not expected to be strong at all, maybe 10 to 15 out of the northeast. But down on the coast, the forecast is completely different. We expect rain a good chance of it all day from the morning all the way through the afternoon and the evening for Galveston Boulevard coast of Brazoria, Matagorda County as well. Could be a very wet day. We could see several inches of rain in spots. And you've got a coastal flood warning because as this storm goes by, it's gonna raise the tides could raise them 1 to 3 ft and so low lying roads, you know where they are, they could see high water on them. Tuesday, Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning. So it's a tale of two forecasts, the wet coast and maybe not so much inland. Now, here's where the storm is. As of seven o'clock Monday evening. It's about 100 and 10 miles south southeast of Brownsville, winds at 65. So it's still a tropical storm, gotta get winds to 74 miles an hour to upgrade it to a category one hurricane. And we think that's gonna happen overnight tonight. By Tuesday morning, this is going to be a hurricane. It's moving north northwest at seven miles an hour. Zoom in uh Brownsville radar clearly pick it up the center of the storm, maybe even a little eye trying to form down there. You can see the outer rain band, heavy rain there and a little bit of an outer rain band getting folks on South Padre Island a little bit wet right now as well. Forecast track from the hurricane center takes the cone right up the Texas coast and into Louisiana. This is forecasting a Louisiana landfall as a category two winds of 100 miles an hour as we head into early Wednesday afternoon. So places like Vermilion Bay to Lafayette to uh all the way to New Orleans, they'll be on the right hand side of the track. They'll get the dirty side, they'll get the brunt of hurricane Francine. We on this track would be on the left hand side of the track. That's the clean side and that's gonna make a huge difference because we're on the clean side. Even though we're so close to a category two hurricane. The clean side is called that for a reason, quite often, rain, chances are much lower winds are much lighter and that will have uh ram ramifications as to how the impacts here play out. And I wanted to talk about the quadrant. So again, the right hand side, this is where much stronger winds, rain, tornado threat, everything on the right hand side of a storm moving north, the right hand side gets the bad stuff that's the dirty side. That's where New Orleans and Lafayette and Baton Rouge are gonna be, we will be on the cleaner side, the weaker side. So our impacts are much, much reduced on the weak side of that storm. And that is according to this forecast where we're going to be. Here's kind of a big picture on how the storm is expected to move. Cat. One tomorrow morning becomes a cat. Two late Tuesday night, perhaps into the wee hours of Wednesday morning become a cat too. You can see at that point moving to the northeast and accelerating as it as it does. So then the storm continues into Louisiana. That is the forecast cone from the hurricane center. That is one of our high res models that has the center of the storm a little bit on the eastern side of the center of that cone. But I don't wanna talk about the cone real quick. So the forecast cone from the hurricane center, you may have also heard it called the cone of uncertainty. That is because there's uncertainty with every forecast. So that's the cone as it stands now from the hurricane center. The best mines in hurricane forecasting think it's most likely that the storm will be somewhere in this cone. But statistically, it only stays in the cone 66% of the time, the other 33% of the time we see the track end up getting outside the forecast cone. So because this is so close to us clearly, we are going to have to watch this very carefully. So again, urging you download the app and just stay with us all day long, Tuesday, Tuesday night, Wednesday. So you know what this thing is doing in case it decides to alter its track just a little bit. And you know, this type of the thing, if that storm moves further west or to the left of that center, you know, we could have much greater impacts on the coast because of that. So this is something we have to watch very, very carefully. Uh Here are the impacts closer to home. Future track 7 a.m. Tuesday, rain getting close to the coast, rain on the coast. That's by noon Tuesday, but notice nothing in the way of rain forecast for inland areas. We go into the afternoon, maybe a few showers getting inland. Most of the rain on the coast, heavier rain offshore at that point. That's five o'clock Tuesday. We'll go into Tuesday night. So here's 10 o'clock Tuesday night. Again, the coasts getting the greatest impacts with rain and maybe some gusts to near tropical storm force on the coast Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. And as we get into six am Wednesday, you know, there's the center of the storm. So the western eye wall, if this forecast verifies, it is gonna be about 100 115 miles off the coast of Galveston. That's far enough out to put almost all the bad stuff over the open water of the Gulf of Mexico and not bring it into Houston Galveston. But any time you've got a powerful hurricane, a strong cat, two winds of 100 or more passing that close to you, any wobble and track is going to have big implications. It's a small move, you know, 2030 miles further to the west and we get much more in the way of wind and rain, especially on the coast in the bay. So I'm urging everybody to pay very close attention and be prepared to take action. You know, if that forecast track does move a little bit, then forecast is uh taking the storm into Vermillion Bay on the south central coast of Louisiana during the Wednesday afternoon time frame. What about winds? Well, on that track, Tuesday morning, these are gusts, these are not sustained winds. These are just the gusts. So a gust of 23 in Galveston, August of 16 in Houston. That's 5 a.m. tomorrow morning, Tuesday morning, noon, Tuesday, gusting near 30 in Galveston can handle that. Northeast gust of 16 or so for inland areas again, not sustained but just wind gusts. We get a Tuesday evening. Now we're gusting above 30. It's, it's not out of the question. We could see some limbs, some of that are loose come down on some power lines. So power outage is right near the coast in the bay. You know, it's possible inland. I don't think so. Winds of 15 miles an hour. That's a beautiful breezy evening for Houston on that track. We go into Wednesday morning. So this is when we could see gusts getting close to tropical storm force. Galveston Wednesday morning winds. That's when they will be strongest across the bay and across our coastal areas early Wednesday morning and in the northeast wind to 20 at Houston to 22 at Hobby 15 miles an hour at Huntsville, we should be able to handle that. No problem. We go into Wednesday afternoon and things will begin to settle down wind and rain wise as it all gets taken up and picked up into Louisiana. And that actually brings in a north breeze. So this is also interesting because of the counterclockwise circulation. It's gonna keep this northeast and north breeze that we've been enjoying going through Wednesday. So, if that track does stay off the coast and we miss all the bad stuff, this ends up making for some nice weather going into the middle of the latter part of the week. In the meantime, uh, coastal flood warning is in effect for the coast and the bay. When you get these big storms coming through, you know, it's like dropping a pebble in a pond. It sends out ripples. We're gonna see surf, we're gonna see tides come up 1 to 3 ft above normal. That will inundate some of the low lying roads and if we do end up getting some heavy rain on top of that, then you've got a lot of low lying spots that are gonna get some high water on that. We saw that last week with all the rain. So we may see some of the same spots, get some high water and we are under a tropical storm watch, not a warning but a watch because that thing is gonna pass so close. We're watching it very, very carefully. Rain total forecast. Well, not over the top at all. This particular model showing 1 to 2 inches in some spots on the coast. Again, this is gonna be just a matter of inches whether or not the heavy rain does stay off or we get more heavy rain in our coastal counties. It's something we're just gonna have to watch moment to moment. It's, it's a very delicate forecast when you have such a powerful compact storm system moving so close to where we live. So bottom line impact from Francine, heavy rain threat on the coast tomorrow and Wednesday elevated surf, coastal erosion, strong winds. I think the, the coastal erosion and the surf are definitely gonna be factors for Galveston. I know y'all struggle with that. Uh And we're gonna have more of that with this, with the heavy surf that's gonna be, be spun off from that circulation regardless if it gets close to us or not. That's gonna send a lot of surf into the Texas coast. What you need to be doing is check the forecast at least twice a day, probably more than that tomorrow in case any changes to that track happen. And we end up having to shift gears quickly to a more impactful situation. Although in talking with Doctor Michael Brennan, uh, the director of the National Hurricane Center this afternoon, we've had now three forecast cones, the 10 a.m. the 1 p.m. and the seven pm, the one we just looked at and they're all basically the same. So I asked him directly, how do we feel about that forecast? And he says they're pretty confident that that's the way this is going to play out. So we'll take it one moment at a time and watch and see if it does. That's where we stand. We'll keep you posted as we move through Tuesday and Tuesday night and watch Francine. Hopefully graze on by. And our thoughts are with folks in Louisiana who may take a harder hit. We'll have an update, a complete update on Khou 11 news at 10 o'clock. We'll see you then.