FIRST ALERT WEATHER EXTRA: Monday, July 20

[00:00:00]weather show. This is First [music] Alert Weather Extra.

[00:00:05]>> And on this Monday, starting a new work week and keeping track of the tropics.

[00:00:09]We have tropical depression number two out in the northeastern Gulf. You can see we certainly have counterclockwise swirl here in the eastern Gulf. Nothing that would indicate intensification at least at this point. So, it's remaining a tropical depression as of the 10:00 advisory from the National Hurricane Center. You can see pretty quiet weather here across southeast Louisiana as we are distanced enough from the system to keep any impacts at bay at least for the time being. But, let's talk about what we're going to be monitoring for and what we're going to be looking out for and timing-wise coming up in the next couple of days. You can see right now it's about 120 mi south of Panama City, Florida, at least the estimated center of circulation. What we do have is tropical storm watches that stretch all the way from the Florida Panhandle into extreme southeast Louisiana including areas around Plaquemines Parish and the mouth of the Mississippi River. So, that's the extent of where we have tropical storm watches or warnings in place as of right now. Obviously, as the system gets closer we'll see more of our local area included under some of these watches and warnings. 35-mph maximum sustained winds as of the 10:00 advisory as I mentioned moving northwest at 3 mph. So, basically just needs 4 more mph of sustained winds to become our next tropical storm and that would be tropical storm Bertha. We are expecting that to take place later on today. So, you can see by the overnight 7:00 a.m.

[00:01:33]advisory for tomorrow expected to be a 45-mph tropical storm. And you can see the current track right now kind of keeps it running parallel to the Gulf Coast region and kind of parallel to our coast as well. But, keep in mind we have this envelope here the cone of uncertainty. So, there could be some movement fluctuation kind of within this cone to the north side or the south side. To the north side brings a bit more of the impacts into inland areas.

[00:01:58]To the south side keeps more of the impacts farther out into the open waters of the Gulf. So, the current path right now keeps the majority of the impacts with the system tied closer to our coastal parishes.

[00:02:11]Then we look at the timing. So, this is going to be kind of moving in in that Wednesday into Thursday time frame based off the National Hurricane Center's forecast, but that too has some wiggle room in terms of the forecast cone and then it will be weakening as it will be arriving into the coastal areas of southeastern Texas. So, let's take a look at Futurecast giving an idea of the timing of when we could start to see some of these rain bands moving in. So, this is a look at Futurecast fast forward all the way to tomorrow morning.

[00:02:37]We're going to note one little rain band here going to try and set itself up as we go into Tuesday afternoon, maybe even lingering into Tuesday evening. So, we could start to see a few of these tropical rain bands as early as tomorrow, but notice how it's not all that widespread, not all that impactful.

[00:02:53]Then as we look towards Tuesday into Wednesday, you see the swirl right here.

[00:02:58]So, the graph model has this kind of making its way through southeast Louisiana as we go through the day on Wednesday. So, kind of the wind impact, storm surge impact could be majoritively Wednesday as the center kind of makes its way through. So, you can see where we've got some of the heavier rainfall down towards the coastal parishes, but just notice the lack of rain on the northern quadrant of this system. That's because we're going to have strong wind shear coming from the north to the south and that's going to help push a lot of the convection, a lot of the showers and storms down towards the south. So, the rain impacts are going to be mainly south of the Interstate corridor, south of the metro Baton Rouge area. Then as we get into Thursday, we start to see the flip side here in terms of the circulation. So, we'll see more of a south to north direction in terms of shower and thunderstorm threats and I do think we'll see a little bit more in the way of rainfall by the time we get towards Thursday, but not a whole significant amount or chance of rain in our forecast. Notice how we're keeping things in the scattered variety. Now, that is kind of area-wide within our viewing area, which stretches all the way north to southwestern Mississippi.

[00:03:59]So, as you go down towards the coast, yes, you're going to have higher rain chances overall, but in terms of our viewing area, overall rain coverage expects to be about 30 to 40% of our viewing area receiving measurable rainfall. That's how you digest rain chances on a widespread basis, and then you can see how we're staying with that even outside of the system moving and exiting out of the area.

[00:04:19]So, when we talk about rain amounts, we're going to be talking about it kind of staggered effect. We're going to see less in the way of rain amounts as you go north, more in the way of rain amounts as you go farther towards the south. So, the latest outlook from the Weather Prediction Center through the course of the next 5 days. So, this takes us through the encompassment of what will be Tropical Storm Barry moving through. You can see estimations upwards of 2 to 5 in as you go closer to the coast, kind of just to the south of the Interstate Corridor, estimations of 1 to 3 in of rain, and then along the Interstate Corridor into the north, estimations of less than an inch of rainfall. So, in terms of issues tied to rain amounts, that is likely going to be the case closer to the coast where we could see some flash flood concerns, and we do have slight risks for excessive rainfalls along the immediate coast for Wednesday and again on Thursday. The next thing we're going to be watching for will be the possibility inundation due to storm surge. Now, that is again more or less a coastal impact, but also can filter into our tidal lakes where we see storm surge watches as of right now kind of stretching from the Alabama coast into extreme southeastern Louisiana. And it's in those areas where we're expecting the highest storm surge totals up to 4 ft of inundation. Now, we take a look at the storm surge estimates for Lakes Pontchartrain, Maurepas, and then along the immediate coast from the Morgan City all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi River, we're talking about up to 3 ft of storm surge. Now, the direction also will matter. The flow is going to be coming from the north to the south. So that's going to push water into our northern facing shores right here, south side of Lake Pontchartrain, south side of Maurepas. So that's where we're going to see the build up of storm surge early on. So that would be kind of Tuesday into Wednesday. Then as the storm gets to our west, we start to see that flip back around. So now we're starting to see that storm surge impacting areas along the immediate coast and then the north side of Lakes Pontchartrain and Maurepas, where we could start to see that shift back towards those areas. going to be the concern at least in the meantime for storm surge. As we look towards the tropical storm wind threat, wind probabilities are still fairly low across much of southeast Louisiana. You can see upwards of 5, 10, maybe 20% in some spots. So that's the wind probabilities, possibility of seeing tropical storm force winds in those locations. Then you look at the earliest onset arrival time of those tropical storm force winds, kind of these black lines. So we're talking about kind of that Wednesday time frame leading into early Thursday morning would be the wind threat for us. And again, majority of that wind threat in terms of probability would be along the immediate coastline with maybe some small smaller potential for seeing some stronger gusts as you go farther inland heading through the day on Wednesday.

[00:07:01]So let's look at those wind gusts here.

[00:07:03]There's a look at the graph model once again as we take you Tuesday evening, Tuesday night. Got some breezy conditions around but nothing too bad.

[00:07:10]Then as the system gets a little bit closer and kind of makes its way in, you can see we're starting to see some wind gusts upwards of 30 mph or higher closer to those areas. So we're talking about that tropical depression, tropical storm force potential being there, but even then we're still talking about gusts. So not sustained winds. So this doesn't look like it'd be a significant wind maker either for our area, but the potential still could be there for some sporadic power outages. So again, the strongest of the winds kind of closer to the tidal lakes, extreme eastern southeastern Louisiana, and then the kind of wind field falls apart a little bit as we move through the day on Wednesday. Even along the coast, you can see strongest wind gusts kind of upwards of 25 to maybe even at times 30 mph, but inland areas rarely see wind gusts higher than say 20 mph. So, again, this isn't going to be a huge issue for inland areas. We're keeping more of a threat along the coast and extreme southeastern Louisiana closer to coastal Mississippi for the time being. Of course, we'll continue to keep you updated if we see some slight shifts in the forecast track that could start to bring some of those impacts farther inland on a northerly transition of the track. If it continues to filter farther to the south, we may get out without much of any concern here locally. So, we'll keep you updated on our free first alert weather app and of course on our stream channel as well as on WAFB itself. So, catch us at any point during the day. We'll continue to keep you updated on what is to become tropical storm Bertha.

[00:08:35]>> I'm Long over you Lock Meredith.

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