Tropical Storm Bertha strengthens, moves toward Florida Panhandle and Alabama

[00:00:00]Back now at 5:43, I'm Rob Krieger.

[00:00:02]>> And I'm Kelsey Davis. Let's get over to meteorologist Zack Fradella with the latest on Tropical Storm Bertha.

[00:00:06]>> Now a 50 mph tropical storm. The storm so we did see some strengthening overnight and look it's trying. I'll give it that. Notice how the center got spit out out of those thunderstorms that were developing closer now in the past hour or so we've blown up some new thunderstorms that are trying to wrap themselves around that circulation but the wind shear is just not going to allow that to happen. Pressure down to 998. I just checked the Hurricane Hunters just flew through the center.

[00:00:31]That pressure might be down around 995 now. So when the pressure falls technically the storm is strengthening.

[00:00:37]Now it can only strengthen so much when you have that wind shear blowing against it when you have that wind shear blowing across it. Uh these storms have a ceiling and I think 50 to 60 mph would be the ceiling on any type of uh strength with Bertha. The track has not changed overnight. This thing's going to run into our eastern shoreline as we go throughout the day uh tomorrow. It's going to be hard to know exactly when it makes landfall because there's not going to be a ton of weather where the circulation is. Yes, there'll be some gusty winds circulating around this thing but the really nasty stuff is going to stay well south of where that center uh goes. Our eastern shoreline and the Mississippi Gulf Coast included in a tropical storm warning. Everybody else in a tropical storm watch on the south shore.

[00:01:16]It's hard to tell if we're actually going to get tropical storm winds all the way into the city or all the way west right across our south shore vicinity cuz everything's going to start to die off as soon as it moves into our eastern shoreline. Underneath that tropical storm warning we have a storm surge alert uh 2 to 4-ft water level rise expected as this comes in from the east which for us an east to west moving storm is a bad track because it does push a good bit of water into this eastern uh shoreline. That would be more so in the vicinity of Waveland, uh coastal Mississippi. I think you have the best chance cuz the way the coastline goes right here you just funnel that water into that spot. Also Plaquemines Parish on the east bank could have some of those higher water level rises up to 4 ft. That's the reasonable worst case scenario. All right, so here we go playing out the forecast modeling. This thing's going to track to the northwest and get closer and closer to uh the Gulf Coast as we go into later tonight. Thunderstorms getting blown well to the south as we go through the night and get into tomorrow morning. You're watching me in the morning hours. We're going to still have a north wind. So, we're still going to be pushing the water out. Uh but, the coastline will start to get some nasty weather I think around Boothville, Venice. There'll be some heavier bands of showers and then some gusty wind starting to increase as we get closer and closer to that circulation. Where does the circulation go? It just sort of migrates into southeast Louisiana, but there's all your really bad banding and all your really bad weather. And it's all off the Louisiana coastline, not really on the coast. And then as we go into tomorrow night, that's when this weather moves in. As soon as this low gets inland, it's going to start to just fall apart. So, we're going to start to lose the wind. We're going to lose the gusty breeze. We will be in deeper into the moisture, so there could be some rain bands even Wednesday night uh going into Thursday morning, but the general trend will be for all of this to continue to get pushed farther and farther south off the coast into our west. Here's the rain potential over the next 7 days. They've now lowered most of southeast Louisiana. We're probably down to less than an inch if that. You're going to get some bands of rain at times, but the heavy stuff, the 10 plus inches, the real flood threat's going to stay off the immediate coast on south of that track line that you see on the graphic there. So, looking at the entire 70 craft 7-day forecast here, 94 still very hot today, but we will start to get some storms. The better chance of storms this afternoon into this evening as we blow up uh one of these bands around that's rotating around Bertha. Uh tomorrow, coastal folks, especially eastern shoreline, you'll know that there's a storm uh blowing in because we will have some gusty winds and we'll have some passing rain bands, but everybody else, once you go inland, the wind's not going to be as strong. It'll be a breezy day, but there's going to be a lot of sun to go around tomorrow. Uh not so much at the coastline, but farther inland it might be just as sunny and might feel better cuz the wind's blowing.

[00:04:01]>> Mhm.

[00:04:01]>> Yeah. So, >> I'll take that. Yesterday was hot.

[00:04:04]>> it's one of those things though, hey, this still is, you know, a >> Still is a tropical storm.

[00:04:08]>> You still have the same type of alerts, but not all tropical storms are created equal.

[00:04:13]>> Right.

[00:04:13]>> Um and we saw that with Arthur, too.

[00:04:15]It's like, oh, Arthur was just this weak thing, but it really brought big impacts. This is going to be the exact opposite where we're going to have all the alerts, but I think the big impacts are probably going to be for the oil platforms.

[00:04:24]>> And for people who are thinking another tropical storm, we just had this a few weeks ago, and they're kind of thinking back to Arthur. You've clarified this a couple days now, but it just keep reiterating. We're not going to see those tornado warnings and watches pop like crazy like we did during Arthur, especially in those overnight early morning hours.

[00:04:38]>> It's not going to happen with this. If we had that band that's sitting off the coast, if it was coming inland, I would say, hey, watch out, but everything keeps pointing towards most of the weather staying off our coastline with this system.

[00:04:49]>> All right.

[00:04:50]>> Sounds good. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah.

[00:04:51]>> Well, folks got to get ready for the