Tropical Storm Bertha latest: Wednesday 4 a.m. advisory and forecast

[00:00:38]Heat. Heat.

[00:01:25]This is a severe weather alert from WWL weather sponsored by Higen Botham Insurance and financial services.

[00:01:34]>> All right, dark and early here at 400 a.m. on your Wednesday, July 22nd. We're still tracking tropical storm Bertha closer to Louisiana. But let's start by saying Bertha is struggling this morning and this is good. It continues to weaken. We've got a 50 mph tropical storm and I think that's probably generous. It looks like the intensity is probably coming down because there's the center about 50 mi off the mouth of the river and look where all the big showers and storms are in the Gulf. This is a sign that wind shear and dry air are doing what we expected to do and starting to really rip this thing apart.

[00:02:07]Now, we are expecting some breezy conditions today and a few passing showers, but really not a lot of rain. I mean, this is live radar. There is hardly any rainfall on the northern side of this. Now, there are a couple passing showers and you can see them pivoting around the center. These will be moving in throughout the day and these will be just passing through. These are not heavy. These are not going to cause flooding or anything like that. The official track of this brings it into the mouth of the river here by about 1:00 this afternoon. A little bit faster than yesterday's forecast. And then the center of this continues to move off to the west. Now, what'll be interesting is does the center stay in Louisiana or does the original center begin to fall apart and maybe we get a new center trying to form off the coast and head towards Texas. The National Hurricane Center did note this in their latest latest advisory that all these showers and storms that are getting blown off of our coast may try to form a new center as it moves towards Texas. That's something Texas is going to watch very very closely for us. I just don't think that means a whole lot more for our forecast. You notice we got a few showers this afternoon. These are passing through. Occasionally there may be a strong wind gust. Now Grand Isle, you may actually get some heavier rain initially, but I don't think you're going to get a lot. I really do think the biggest rains are just off the coast in the Gulf. And then look at this. By tonight, this thing has decoupled as we call it. Meaning the lowle circulation has disappeared or has decoupled from the original showers and storms. And then we may try to get a new center formation in somewhere south of our coast. And then that's something Texas would have to watch. If we do get a new center relocation, then this thing may actually try to ramp back up as it heads towards Texas. If it doesn't do that and it just stays weak along our coast and Texas doesn't see a whole lot. So that's going to be the next thing that they watch over there. But for us, it still looks like a minimal event. We do have tropical storm warnings for New Orleans all the way down to the coast. Anywhere in blue here is a tropical storm warning. That does include lower, all of Jefferson and Orleans. It includes the lake as well. It also includes Slidel and over into Bay St. Louis and Harrison County. These are the spots where you might see a wind over 40 miles an hour.

[00:04:11]Here's my handdrawn wind forecast. I don't think we see significant winds, but I do think every now and then a wind gust along the coast is going to get some people's attention. I'm forecasting 40 to 50 mile per hour wind gust occasionally down near the mouth of the river and Grand Isle and Port Fuchon. A little further inland 35 to 45 mph.

[00:04:28]That's for Shell Beach getting close to areas like Koma and then New Orleans, Lelass, Slidell, Tibido, up the river parishes. Um, we might have winds 30 to 40 mph at the strongest part, especially near the lakefront. So, that's where we expect the strongest winds. When do the winds pick up? Well, there's a breeze picking up this morning. There's the center. Notice we start to see some higher gusts near eastern St. Bernard and Chandelor Island by around 9 or 10:00 this morning. And then those winds gust, they pick up a little bit through the afternoon. I think New Orleans sees its highest gust later in the afternoon and into the evening. Down along the coast, it'll be an afternoon evening.

[00:05:03]And then tonight's going to be windy. If you're down there on the coast, you will have a wind out of the south and that'll bring up some water 30 40 45 miles an hour certainly on uh the table with these wind gusts. Surge still doesn't look like a major issue. We've got 2 to 4 foot rise in Lake Bourne, east bank of Plaemens, Bay St. Louis, Gulfport. The lake is still forecasted 1 to three.

[00:05:23]Grand Isle is 1 to three. The highest surge in Grand Isle will be late tonight and early tomorrow morning. Same thing down in Terabone Bay and off towards Morgan City, 1 to 3 ft. That is doable.

[00:05:33]So again, this is not a big storm for us. A lot of us are going to be just fine. Just going to be a passing shower every now and then today. And then we'll be looking at um a hot day if you're not getting rain. There's actually an extreme heat advisory. I'm not sure I've ever seen an extreme heat warning and a tropical storm warning at the same time.

[00:05:50]But that's what we got today. I still think we have a few showers tomorrow as Bertha lifts away. High in the 90s. And then we get back to even hotter weather as temperatures move back into the mid 90s. Very little rain this weekend.

[00:06:00]We've got coverage for you all morning long. We do have someone going down to Grand Isle. We're going to have station down there checking it out. The rodeo is getting ready to kick off here in the next few days. We'll have live views at the lakefront. That's all coming up at 5:00 a.m. right here on channel 4 and streaming on your WWL app. We will see you then.

[00:06:18]>> This has been a severe weather alert from WWL weather sponsored by Higen Botham Insurance and Financial Services.

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