New Orleans Under Tropical Storm Warning As Bertha Approaches

[00:00:00]All right, let's get back to the Gulf where we just got that new update in from the National Hurricane Center. You're looking at it there on your screen. Uh let's bring in Fox Weather hurricane specialist Brian Norcross. Brian, uh what's the word here? We saw the the main bulletin being that New Orleans now under a tropical storm warning.

[00:00:20]>> Yeah. So, a couple of things. First of all, they they got a pass from the satellite that measures the wind at the Earth. And they found that the storm is actually a little bigger in terms of where the tropical storm force winds are occurring out from the center, but the center still isn't much. And there's this big cluster of thunderstorms to the south. Look down here to the south.

[00:00:39]Watch it blow up there. And I think what this is is the storm is tilted over to the south. And so that's kind of a mid-level center that is like a separate storm almost that is kicking off really strong thunderstorms uh down there.

[00:00:54]They're holding it at 60 miles an hour because there haven't been any hurricane hunters in since those winds were measured earlier this afternoon. Another two flights go in this evening. So they'll have really good data for the 11 o'clock advisory tonight. Maybe even for the 800 pm update coming up. They they call it northwest at six, but it's actually bending more toward the west.

[00:01:17]Still kind of kind of a northwest orientation on it and holding the last pressure that was measured. Again, awaiting new data from the National Hurricane Center now or from the hurricane hunters, I mean. All right, take a look here. And you can see what I was talking about. Look where the center is. The center is this big broad thing up here. But down here, you can see the thunderstorms boiling. Look at that. And that looks like that that this storm is just tilted over. So, as we go forward in time and this thing goes more or less to the west toward Louisiana tomorrow, then what happens with this kind of mid-level center that's probably going to go to the west as well and end up offshore. So, whether these two things become completely decoupled, so there is no surface down at the surface of the earth circulation, which is what this is, that's a real possibility. It's another possibility that the another center just kind of forms under this one south of Louisiana or some combination of those things. So that's why the future after tomorrow is fuzzy. So the the other thing that's changed about this is the models are now speeding it up and getting the center to Louisiana earlier tomorrow, more like tomorrow afternoon. But remember that's up here and there's just not much up there. It's down here where the really bad weather is. All right, let's take a look at the radar. And you can kind of see that.

[00:02:40]Look at this down here. You can you can kind of make out that something is kind of wanting to spin down in there separately from this overall circulation, big circulation here. And in these cells, this is where we're getting some tropical storm force winds as these come around here. and exactly where they are. They're going to end up at any one time. No way to know because there's a lot of dry air and in between these lines, it's it's dry and the weather is not bad in between there, but the those are strong like tropical downpour gusty kind of cells. All right, here's the new cone just out from the National Hurricane Center and you see making landfall such that there is land in extreme southeastern Louisiana, Blackman's Parish on up to St. Bernard Parish. there. It's very marshy kind of land, but they're estimating top winds at 50 mph when that happens tomorrow afternoon and then moving over Louisiana and slowly weakening. But this is just okay, we think it's going to slowly weaken, but there's a lot of uncertainty about exactly that. May very well be that it's completely kind of decoupled and coming apart here. And maybe it hangs together and just slowly weakens because of these strong upper level winds that are blowing in. And here you can see and look at this on the satellite. So high pressure back over here. You can kind of see it turning and then we get this flow coming down this way that's pushing the tilting the storm and pushing the thunderstorms to the south. And there you see them in the moisture right down there. But the center of the storm is up here. So just a super hostile environment, but it's hanging on. So, as far as tracking the center, that's what these model lines do. This is about the center. And when we take an average of all that, that's the yellow one there we call the consensus. That's what Google says kind of dying out here in southwestern Louisiana becoming decoupled and so forth. But the idea is it moves toward Texas. Exactly how much of a storm it is at that time, it it's a little bit uncertain. But in any case, uh because it's the very warm Gulf and it's certainly spinning, we're going to just watch this thing and be sure that nothing unexpected happens in or around Louisiana like it reforms to the south and then heads toward Texas and as something of a kind of formidable tropical storm at that point. Don't think it would be anything worse than that. All right, that's the way under the hood of all those lines. This is what makes those lines taking these averages. You notice that the European kind of gets all squirly up in here. It doesn't really go far. It's the European AI model that kind of insists that it ends up over here in Texas. Google model again probably stalling out around New Orleans. So, we we'll see if this new AI model from the European Center, which has been pretty good this year, we'll see exactly how that works out. So, when we look at the certainty, this is a Fox Weather tropical threat graphic. You see where the certainty is here toward New Orleans and offshore in terms of where the center will track over here when we get closer to Texas becomes less much less certain exactly what where that center is going to be if there is even going to be a center by that time. Terms of the rain there you see it those the thunderstorms that complex that's south of the center there you see it moving to the west and staying south of Louisiana.

[00:06:16]question is, can another center, at least temporarily, develop in that big complex of thunderstorms along the coast? Some areas get up to two inches or so, but most of the heavy rain stays offshore. At least that's their thinking at the moment. That's what the computers are saying. Ian, >> Brian, I'm listening to the update and I'm thinking about what the the actual real world experience might be like tomorrow in New Orleans, a place that has has been through so much tropical weather in its history. Do you feel like this is mainly they're in a tropical storm warning, which means expect tropical storm conditions. It's going to be a very windy day tomorrow, but you just showed that rain graphic. It it it might be as dry as you could possibly be to be included in the tropical storm warning.

[00:07:04]Yeah, I I think it is just going to be gusty in places in that general zone.

[00:07:09]So, if a cell makes it around, then it then it pulls down some of the air from a loft and you get gusts. But I don't think we're going to see big sustained winds with this thing uh down if there are sustained winds, they're down in that complex that's well to the south.

[00:07:24]So, Plaeman's Parish down on the extreme in Grand Isle on the extreme southern part of southeastern Louisiana. There's where if we're going to get some kind of significant sustained winds, that's where they're going to be.

[00:07:39]>> Yeah. No, no two storms are ever the same. We know that. But this is this is an interesting setup. So, folks need to be prepared for it. all the hazards that you outlined there and uh looking forward to the analysis and the coverage as we move through what should be an interesting day with this tomorrow. Uh that's Fox with a hurricane specialist Brian Norcross. Thank you.