Tropical Storm Francine likely to become hurricane soon, forecasters say
Tropical Storm Francine, which formed Monday morning in the Gulf of Mexico, is strengthening and growing more organized, said the National Hurricane Center.
Forecasters expect it to strengthen into a hurricane before making landfall Wednesday. A hurricane warning has been issued for the Louisiana coast from Sabine Pass to Morgan City.
“Significant strengthening is forecast over the next couple of days,” the hurricane center’s most recent update said.
Tropical storm warnings are in effect for northeastern Mexico and far southern Texas.
As of 8 p.m. Monday, the system was located 145 miles southeast of the Rio Grande at the Mexico-U.S. border. It was moving north-northwest at 7 mph with maximum sustained wind speeds of 65 mph. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 160 miles from the center.
Francine is expected to impact Texas and Louisiana as a hurricane on Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The storm should track north just offshore of Mexico through Tuesday, then turn to the northeast, strengthen into a hurricane, and head toward Louisiana and Upper Texas coastline, with an expected landfall sometime Wednesday.
The system “is expected to move inland along the Texas-Louisiana border,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Isaac Longley. “One of the main concerns with this storm is that it is forecast to move into an area already impacted by heavy rain and flooding from a separate tropical rainstorm this past week.
“The ground across far eastern Texas and into Louisiana is already saturated, so it would not take much rain to cause flooding across these areas.”
The storm should bring 4 to 8 inches of rain, with local amounts to 12 inches, from the coastal border areas of Mexico northward all the way to southern Louisiana and southern Mississippi into Thursday morning. Flash flooding and urban flooding are a risk.
The National Hurricane Center added a storm surge warning from Vermillion Bay east to the mouth of the Mississippi River, and a surge watch from the mouth of the Mississippi east to the Mississippi-Alabama border.
If storm surge coincides with high tides, coastal Louisiana south and west of of New Orleans could see surges from 5 feet to 10 feet high, forecasters said.
There also is a hurricane watch from Cameron eastward to Grand Isle in Louisiana.
A tropical storm watch has been issued east of High Island, Texas, to Cameron, Louisiana, and from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to the Mouth of the Pearl River including Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas.
AccuWeather expert meteorologists say 60 mph to 70 mph wind gusts are possible along the Gulf Coast through Thursday.
Meanwhile, two systems in the eastern Atlantic are being monitored and could develop into tropical depressions.
In the central Atlantic, an elongated trough of low pressure could become a tropical depression in the next few days as it moves west, forecasters said.
As of 8 p.m. Monday, it had a 40% chance of forming in the next two to seven days, down from 60% earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, a third system trailing close behind could become a tropical depression in the mid to latter part of this week, after it interacts with an approaching tropical wave, forecasters said. As of 8 p.m. Monday, it had a 70% chance of forming in the next seven days.
Experts at Colorado State University issued a new forecast last Tuesday, predicting below-normal hurricane activity in the Atlantic for the next two weeks.
Here’s what the next two weeks of hurricane season should look like, according to experts
Overall, CSU experts predict 23 named storms in the 2024 season, leaving the possibility of 18 more before the season ends on Nov. 30. The average number of named storms between 1991 to 2020 is 14.4.
The next named storm will be Gordon.
