Monday 4 p.m. tropical weather update: Tropical Depression 2 remains disorganized

[00:00:00]like the worst of it is going to stay well offshore.

[00:00:02]>> That's great news.

[00:00:03]>> So, let's hope that trend continues.

[00:00:05]That is a trend that we saw in the latest update from the National Hurricane Center as of their 4:00 advisory. Again, no changes really. It is still a depression. It is struggling to find that uh storm development around the center of circulation. So, it is still kind of an unorganized system. All of the upper level patterns are working in our favor to keep this week. And while it is still expected to become Bertha, it should not get a great deal stronger than it is right now. And notice what rain we're able to pick up from our radar sites along the coastline is not extensive and the heaviest is more south of that center. And as long as the center passes more south of the city, keep in mind here's kind of where the bulk of the heavy rainfall should be and should kind of follow along that path. So even as it moves inland maybe late Wednesday, early Thursday, there was a little bit of a slowdown in the forward speed only because it just is not moving right now. Forward speed is only at 3 m an hour. Basically, it's just sitting there. It is kind of waiting for the upper ridging which is to our northwest to kind of pick it up and start moving it to the west. So there is still that possibility it does move a little bit more north before it begins moving west. What would be ideal is if it just stays moving west and the center remains even offshore, which is still very much a possibility. Right now, tropical storm watches are up, including our coastal locations east of the mouth of the river, meaning tropical storm force conditions are expected within the next 36 hours in those locations. Here is what is going on right now. This is dry air. It is also wind shear and that has been disrupting the center of the storm. and that does not look like it ever really lets up.

[00:01:52]So, as long as we've got this dry air basically encircling our system, it is not going to be able to rapidly intensify. So, that is almost off the table as a possibility. And that dry air keeps the associated moisture all offshore. Now, this is just looking at upper level dry air. It doesn't mean we don't get any rainfall from it, but the bulk of that tropical moisture and the potential of 10 to 15 or more inches of rain like we saw in Arthur in a few locations would stay in the open Gulf waters. So that dry air, the wind shear all look to really keep this as a very weak system. None of the models are doing a perfect job with this. So, I would rather kind of look at what we're actually seeing and observing on water vapor on satellite, but our precision cast model has probably the best idea, keeping the bulk of that heavy rain south. Notice while we do see a few passing showers on the northern side of the storm, they're nothing very heavy and they kind of move through very quickly. So, we'll probably have a few passing showers on Tuesday, probably a little bit more by Wednesday and Thursday. But again, as long as the storm continues along a path which keeps the center south of the city, better bet would be if it stays along the coastline or even farther offshore, that northern wind shear and the dry air should keep all of the heavy rainfall well removed to our south. And that is exactly what the models have been indicating. This is a look at the euro. Bulk of the rain, the southern side or the western side of the track in terms of accumulation locally, roughly an inch. We can handle that over the course of a couple of days. And that's not the only model.

[00:03:31]This is our one of our other high resolution models. Again, kind of a few areas of maybe a trace or more of rain.

[00:03:38]Some instances of a inch or more, especially down toward the coast, but most of our modeling is keeping the bulk of the heavy rain well offshore. Now, what we could see inland is maybe a few isolated downpours that lead to some street flooding, but even that threat does look to be fairly low and primarily for Wednesday and on into Thursday. By Friday, we're already drying out. So, this is a look again at the infrared or excuse me, the uh visible satellite on our high resolution satellite imagery here. And there is a clear circulation.

[00:04:08]Now, if any storms are able to start developing around that, maybe we do see the winds bump up another 5 miles an hour, which would then classify it as tropical storm Bertha. But as of right now, it is struggling to do so. In terms of any rain locally, we've had a few passing showers here and there, but have not been anything particularly heavy.

[00:04:25]The winds near the center of the storm, we've had a buoy near the center, it is moving slowly away from it, but max winds there of only 22 m an hour sustained. So, even the buoys near the center are not reporting any very strong winds. Now, we'll start to get some wind gusts here beginning probably Wednesday early morning and a pretty windy day overall Wednesday and into Thursday. We could see tropical storm force wind gusts locally and that can cause some minor damage, but those don't look to be sustained over southeast Louisiana, north southern Mississippi. So, we'll go with the weather impact alert because of the strong winds and possibly passing heavy downpours at times Wednesday and Thursday, but we're quickly drying right back out and staying hot Friday and into the weekend.