Monday night update on Tropical Storm Bertha

[00:00:02]I'm meteorologist Nicholas Herboso with Fox 10 News out of the Mobile, Pensacola area with your central Gulf Coast update on tropical storm Bertha. The latest advisory as of 10 p.m. here on Monday evening. A storm winds of 40 miles per hour. Pressure 999 millibars. That is actually down slightly from what it was previously indicating very very very gradual deepening of the system. kind of a steady slow upward progression in the strength but just by a very small amount. You can see the storm is lopsided. There's shear happening with this thing. Winds blowing out of the north and northeast blowing all the thunderstorms onto the southern side of the system. That's what you see there. Take a look at it on radar and it's a very similar depiction where you see the rain showers very few on the northern side of the storm. On the southern side of the storm, you have an actual area where uh more widespread rain is falling. Look at the movement stationary at this point. Eventually, we do expect it to start moving to the northwest as it starts to feel some steering current. Uh it's going to be fighting the wind shear, though. Strong winds out of the north going to be competing with its motion to the northwest. Really, it's going to be a sheared system and likely a weak system as it moves northwest approaching the central Gulf Coast. Here's the latest track update from the National Hurricane Center in this latest advisory. And in the near term, you can see that for us here in the Fox 10 Mobile, Pensacola viewing area, we have actually been trimmed out of the actual forecast cone.

[00:01:36]That does not mean we will not see impacts anymore. We will still see some impacts from this, especially at the immediate coast. This thing tracks weekly uh just paralleling our coast eventually uh either into southeast Louisiana or very near southeast Louisiana. I do think a slightly stronger system would take the southern part of the track. A weaker system would take the northern part of the track.

[00:02:00]That is seemed to be the trend here.

[00:02:02]Looking beyond this and the long range part of this forecast track parallels the coast and weakens as it gets into Texas. Here are the new alerts. We do have some new alerts to talk about.

[00:02:11]Tropical storm warnings in place for Mobile and Baldwin County. That's coastal Mobile and Bowwin County.

[00:02:17]Tropical storm conditions over the next couple of days cannot be ruled out at the immediate coast with some tropical storm force wind gusts, especially in rain squalls that pass. Otherwise, southern coastal Mississippi there and then southeast Louisiana also in tropical storm warnings where tropical storm conditions cannot be ruled out.

[00:02:35]The storm's fighting some things today.

[00:02:37]It's fighting that windshare and it's actually been getting worse for the storm. But also you see that brown moving in from north to south. That is dry air and dry air is not a helpful thing for a tropical system if it wants to try to get organized. So that's what it's been fighting. The reason it's dealing with wind shear is there's this upper level ridge in the upper levels of the atmosphere. There is wind that is blowing from the northeast and the north on the system. Meaning really any thunderstorms that bubble up actually get blown over. Thunderstorms build up in the atmosphere. It hits those upper level winds. those thunderstorms get blown over to the south of the storm and it's created a really lopsided look to this thing and this is going to continue as the storm approaches the central Gulf Coast. So for all of us that are here on the coast, we're actually not seeing that much in terms of widespread rainfall thanks to that northerly wind shear blowing all the widespread rainfall to the south of the system instead of to the north. And you can see this here reflected in the weather prediction c center's future rainfall, their rainfall forecast. Let's say the track of the system were to go something like this.

[00:03:48]All on the southern side, there's your rain. And that's been the expectation for us. And this has been a consistent message from uh the forecast models and of course the forecast from folks at the National Hurricane Center, Weather Prediction Center, and so on. Here's some modeling for you just to show you what this might look like on a satellite radar picture, a future satellite radar projection. This is Tuesday, midday.

[00:04:10]Maybe a couple of isolated rainbands near the coast, but there will definitely be some peaks of sunshine for the central Gulf Coast over the next couple of days. Plenty of sunshine at times with hot temperatures. But just occasionally, especially Tuesday evening into Wednesday for us here in the Mobile, Pensacola area, we could see a passing quick tropical downpour. That tropical downpour could produce some gusty winds. We start our Wednesday with sunny skies for parts of the area. Then other parts of the area getting passing clouds and brief passing downpours. It is going to be quite windy near the immediate coast Monday night or Monday night, excuse me, Tuesday night into Wednesday morning as the core of the storm pu uh passes closest to us. Then looking at Wednesday, this thing is starting to get into uh Louisiana there with tropical storm force winds impacting some of those coastal zones and then eventually it parallels the coast of Louisiana into Texas there as we go towards the end of the week.

[00:05:07]Here's a depiction, a projection from one of our forecast models, the same forecast model that you just saw of the wind gust possibilities.

[00:05:16]And again, Tuesday near the coast, you see the winds picking up. Notice the wind direction, the northeast for us, then uh then turning more easterly late in the day on Tuesday. These uh winds will produce some very, very rough surf down at the immediate coast. Here's your gusts. You can see they're around 20 to 30 mph, especially near the coast. Our inland zones have slightly lighter winds. As we go to Tuesday night into Wednesday, that is when we could have some of the strongest gusts near the coast. This is not going to be anything damaging, but this is uh near tropical storm force. In fact, that green color is tropical storm force gusts. And you can see that is butdding up right against the coast. For folks on Dolphin Island, places like Fort Morgan or Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Gulf Breeze, Pensacola Beach, um even to Pasigula, we could get close to seeing some tropical storm force gusts Tuesday night into Wednesday morning as this system is passing closest. It may not be raining at those points, but you could still have some breezy conditions near the coast. Otherwise, this thing passes as we get later in the day on Wednesday.

[00:06:18]Local headlines for us, dangerous surf.

[00:06:20]That wind is going to create some serious problems down at the beach.

[00:06:24]Could even see some minor coastal erosion, but definitely you are not getting in the water over the next couple of days. Breezy conditions near the coast. Wind gust around 35 miles per hour cannot be ruled out. Maybe even up to tropical storm for force. We do have a tropical storm warning in effect now.

[00:06:38]And then passing tropical downpours.

[00:06:39]These are quick hitting downpours. It rains heavily for a little bit. There's some gusty winds and they pass and the sun comes back out. So this is not widespread rain that we are expecting for our central Gulf Coast area. The biggest concern is rip currents tomorrow. A high risk of rip currents and it just goes from there. Do not get in the water. There are going to be some surfers that are probably going to get in. But for general beachgoers, this is not the time. And in fact, the surf gets very very rough to where even surfers I think it would be a challenge uh with waves. And take a look at these wave heights here as we go through the next couple of days. Getting up to around 10 ft by Wednesday. That's going to cause some serious problems there. There is a high surf warning in place for our coastal zones. Mobile County, Baldwin County, and the northwestern Florida panhandle. Those beaches all dealing with extremely rough surf. This will be into Thursday morning. Also, with the wind, there could be some minor coastal flooding, uh, technically storm surge.

[00:07:36]So, you do have a storm surge watch that is in place still for parts of the area.

[00:07:41]Let's talk local forecast for a second.

[00:07:43]And I'm switching forecast models to the HR, one of our high-res models, so you can plan your Tuesday and into your Wednesday. So, understand we are not expecting widespread constant rain.

[00:07:54]Through a good chunk of the morning on Tuesday, it's dry and mostly sunny. Then Tuesday afternoon, the system gets closer, so we start to see a few more rainbands. So, especially for our coastal counties, Interstate 10 South, we could see a few extra downpours passing by. a little more cloud cover at the immediate coast as well. If you're along the Highway 84 corridor, uh you really aren't getting that much. Uh you probably won't even notice that there's a tropical system other than the uh light breeze that you'll be getting by Wednesday morning. Still some passing rain showers. Uh you're not seeing any major uh big heavy violent rainbands.

[00:08:31]This is just nowhere near that, but some of these could still pack a punch with gusty winds. Here's 400 p.m. on Wednesday, and you can see still some rain showers going on as this system starts to make its exit out of our picture. Otherwise, it is going to be hot tomorrow. High temperatures in the mid 90s for our Mississippi counties, some lower 90s and upper 80s the more east you go. Still some high heat index values, possibly over 100° what we'll be dealing with. But we've called it a storm tracker alert day over the next couple of days. Our main concern is folks heading down to the beach. You do not want to be down at the beach. We could also see some coastal flooding issues. So, just keep that in mind. And the breezy conditions Tuesday night into Wednesday at the immediate coast. Quite frankly, this is not a high impact system and this is not something to get worked up about. If you're vacationing on the Gulf Coast, this is not something to cancel plans over, especially because I think it could look quite pretty at times, especially our sunsets. Um, sunset tonight was gorgeous and I think that could continue over the next couple of days because we're not going to get a huge shield of cloud cover. There's going to be breaks. We're going to have that sunshine. Be prepared for the breezy conditions down at the beach over the next couple days with that very rough surf. After this, we return to the heat and our typical summertime pattern here on the Gulf Coast. I'm meteorologist Nicholas Herboso.