Bertha Strengthens: Winds Reach 60 Mph As Storm Tracks West Across The Gulf

[00:00:00]I want to kick things off with Fox Weather hurricane specialist Brian Norcross. So Brian, I really don't know how much of a big deal we make out of this thing strengthening a little bit. I guess it's notable because it's been in a pretty hostile environment, but 60 mph winds good enough for the NHC.

[00:00:15]>> Yeah, they went with it uh because the hurricane hunters didn't just measure it in one little spot or something. It was a a pretty good little band there of very strong winds. uh all well offshore, 70 mi or so, maybe a little more offshore of Panama City. Look at this track. The way it has circled and joged and up and down, it's because the steering environment is is very illdefined. And when we look at the movement here, northnorthwest at three, whenever you have very slow movement, that means you don't have like a river of air that is steering the storm. And whenever that is the case, just a little bit of effect in the atmosphere of something can push it one way or the other. And also the development of thunderstorms just on one side of it can yank it one way or other. So that's why we get that funny kind of steering. But the steering is forecast to actually increase and kind of coming in from this direction here and move it off to the west. So that's what the indication are.

[00:01:19]The other thing is that the pressure has gone down a little bit with this little strengthening burst that we're seeing, but this is not expected to continue.

[00:01:29]Let's look at it close up here. And there you can see the rotation very clearly right there. And for a while, this thunderstorm complex just to the south kind of went over top of the center. That's part of an indication of it trying to strengthen, but those upper level winds are just kind of tearing it apart and pushing the thunderstorms down to the south. So, that trend is not likely to continue. But the fact that it has kind of joged to the north now as it moves to the west gives us a little more indication that there will be more land interaction as it goes by here. That means that the air comes off the land that puts drier air into the system and that should help keep it from getting stronger. It was kind of in this area out here, not moving very much that it it was able to pick up just a little bit. Radar shows that we do have some cells still moving on shore here in the Florida panhandle going to scrape the coast here. Some of these could have gusty winds in them, maybe gusting up to 50, 60 miles hour. That's possible. So, they do have tropical storm warnings in effect all along the coast here over to Louisiana indicating that winds could be of tropical storm strength just scraping along the coast when you get one of those cells going over top of you. But clearly, most of the uh strong winds and intense rain going to be well offshore.

[00:02:59]It's going to be more in these bands that you get one right along the coast or in those adjacent inland sections.

[00:03:07]All right, so here's the new cone from the National Hurricane Center. And you see their thinking is that this little burst of intensity is going to uh kind of wayne as we go into tomorrow as those upper level winds really pick up. 50 miles an hour uh somewhere south of Mobile and then 45 as we get to the Louisiana coast by late in the day uh tomorrow. So that this has all got to do with the environment just deteriorating with the dry air and especially strong upper level winds and then they have 40 miles per hour here. Now what's going to happen once it kind of makes landfall here in Louisiana? Louisiana is very marshy of course southeastern Louisiana but also when you get a disheveled system like this where everything is kind of pushed to one side it is possible that we get reforming down here of a center not expected to be strong but that could extend the life of the system beyond Louisiana otherwise if if that doesn't happen it's likely to die out somewhere in here you'll see that on the models in a second and then we end up with just a weak system heading toward Texas just unlikely to have anything significant. But keeping in mind that possibility and look they even carry it all the way in to the Hill Country out there. Waco and Austin there are the upper level winds that are just going to blow across this thing for days. And that's why it could just come apart over Louisiana where the surface center that we track is just completely disassociated with the thunderstorms and they don't feed on one another any longer. That's a possibility as it gets here late tomorrow into Thursday over Louisiana. Now, the models are pretty consistent here in the short term and then they all go kind of squirly over here because uh exactly how strong the system is, whether it's even a bonafide system any any longer when it gets that far west, that's an open question. So, nothing strong over there. When we look at the consensus model and the Google model, they agree right down the middle of the cone and then Google actually dies it out here over Louisiana. The consensus kind of keeps enough of it going that they can track it. But that's why you see the cone extends that far out. We'll see the uh the uh what am I going to say? The the consensus here of all this one I don't want to use consensus again. The the key message from Google is yes, high confidence right here and then low confidence out here. Only a few stragglers out there.

[00:05:47]When we look at these other models, you see the European, look at this. It's all kind of squirly over in here, but then a few continue. So, we get the same message here over and over again. The AI model from the Europeans continues. A few more out here. and they're the ones that have actually pushed this thing west. This was the first model really to pick up on that. So, we'll see. This is all everything is new this year with these AI models and even the Google model has more to it this year than we saw last year and it was very good last year of course. So, anyway, that's the idea is odds are in here and then still some chance of some remnant affecting Texas on downstream. So there's the high confidence of exactly where it's going to be in this area here, including southeastern Louisiana. And then we get much lower confidence here. You see when we get into the blues and the greens up here, that's low confidence threat. So we'll just keep an eye on that because that's on downstream. There's where the rain is going to be. Uh you see some of it does come over the coast over here in the Florida panhandle and some in uh southeastern Louisiana. heavy rain, but most of it is offshore because those upper level winds are tilting the system that way. So, Stephen, uh we'll see exactly what how this develops. You know, my rule is when a storm is slow moving or it's just developing uh then that's when the forecasts are subject to change. And this one certainly is slowm moving and kind of uh just trying to develop I guess is a better way to put it. and one of our operational models that we've been using here in house. I mean, it's it shows, Brian, that that Bertha could maybe try to even slow down further. Do we give weight to that before it it moves a little closer to southeast Louisiana?

[00:07:42]>> Well, we always said that today was the day if it was going to intensify, this would be it. You know, yes, the upper level winds are are hostile, but not super hostile, but they are forecast as it goes west to actually ramp up. And that's why there's this talk about it actually disassembling by the time it gets to southeastern Louisiana. So, uh, we'll see. You know, they've got the tropical storm warnings up on the chance that it drifts a little farther closer to the coast and there's a better chance of getting some of those squalls uh more associated with the center. As of right now, it looks like most of that's going to stay offshore.

[00:08:23]>> Yeah. And that's um that's the hope. And I think from the final question, just to elaborate a bit more on the storm surge threat, we talked to Jamie Ran um a couple of hours ago and he was he was saying the next two high tide cycles are going to be the the ones to watch. I would assume that you would agree and maybe somewhere between New Orleans and Mobile, we could see a water rise. We saw, you know, a two-foot rise in Appalachiccola.

[00:08:48]>> Yeah. No, I think we're going to get a water rise. Uh the the thing is that the system is weakening that that effect may go away except that it's any slowmoving system continues to push water toward the coast, right? So that a subsequent tide can be a little higher. What's interesting is that they got rid of the storm surge watch. And if Jamie comes back on, I want to ask him about this.

[00:09:11]They got rid of the storm surge watch and they put up a coastal flood warning from the National Weather Service offices instead of the storm surge watch or warning that comes out of the National Hurricane Center. So, there's some kind of protocol going on there.

[00:09:27]Bottom line is they didn't change the forecast and the idea is that they could see a high tide as high as 14 four feet above normal there from Louisiana over to about Pensacola. So just keeping that in mind as a possibility. Certainly though, the other factor at the coast is just dangerous surf conditions along the coast from rip currents and very high waves. They're talking about 10 or 12 foot waves in southern Alabama there and along that coast. And that's really that's really high for the Gulf of Mexico.

[00:09:59]>> And I think that that's the the sneaky threat today because the sun's out. We have heat alerts in effect. A lot of people at the beach. It's July after all. And you've got this system, you know, about 100 miles off the coast from Panama City, Florida. It's uh and it's it's creating some some angry oceans this uh this morning. All right, Brian, thank you for the uh comprehensive update as as always. Um throughout the afternoon, of course, we'll be we'll be watching. We got another story that we've been following today and it's