Tropical storm Bertha forms

[00:00:00]place now.

[00:00:00]>> What I was waiting on is to see with the 8:00 p.m. advisory >> Yeah.

[00:00:05]>> if the National Hurricane Center was going to upgrade the tropical depression to a tropical storm. And they just did that. It's not 8:00 yet, but a lot of times they'll issue these advisories a little bit before the 8:00 hour, and they just did that.

[00:00:19]So, take a look at the maps, and let me show you here what we have. This is now tropical storm Bertha.

[00:00:25]The winds are now at 40 mph, so this is now classified as a tropical storm. It's moving very slowly to the west-northwest at about 3 mph.

[00:00:36]Now, even though this was just upgraded to a tropical storm, it doesn't mean that really the conditions are going to change that much. Yes, it is a little bit stronger, but [snorts] we still think that most of the impacts with this system are going to be down to the south of us. Here's a look at the latest track that we have. Again, this is an intermediate advisory. They really just updated what was going on with the tropical system. The track has not changed that much at all, but it will maintain tropical storm strength, we think, until it moves along the coast there to the west towards Louisiana.

[00:01:10]And most likely making landfall, we're thinking late Wednesday into early on Thursday as a tropical storm there along the Louisiana coastline. So, you do see the tropical storm watch that's in effect right now.

[00:01:24]It'll be interesting to see if they upgrade that to an actual tropical storm warning for those areas along the Florida Panhandle and into the Alabama coastline and into the Mississippi coastline as well. So, it is possible that they now now may upgrade this tropical storm watch to a tropical storm warning. So, for those people who are along the Gulf Coast region, just know that it's still not going to make a direct landfall along the Florida Panhandle or South Alabama or Southern Mississippi. The landfall looks like it's going to be moving in to around Louisiana um as a tropical storm. So, that's what we're going to be watching there. So, if you are going to the Florida Panhandle, if you're already there and are watching us on your phone potentially from the Florida Panhandle or South Alabama or Southern Mississippi, I want you to know you're going to be experiencing some rain. It may not be torrential rain.

[00:02:20]It's going to be some off-and-on rain coming in there. Some breezes that'll be uh elevated a little bit, but I do think that the tropical storm force winds are most likely going to be just along the coastline and maybe maybe off the coastline as well. But, the main impacts that we're going to see along that Gulf Coast region will be uh very rough surf and some rip currents are going to be possible there as well.

[00:02:43]So, that's the latest that we have on this. I also want to show you the forecast track where you can see the impacts of that system as what is now Tropical Storm Bertha uh as it continues moving over toward the west. So, look up into our area. We're mainly dry here tonight. We got just a couple of spotty showers here and there. Tomorrow is mainly going to be dry, only a 20% chance for a shower.

[00:03:06]But, look down into the Gulf and you'll see that system just slowly moving over toward the west. Again, this is Tropical Storm Bertha. It's going to start the flow from the south moving into our area. And on Tuesday, we're only talking about a 20% chance for rain in Atlanta on the south side, maybe a little bit higher rain chances there. But, it's going to be on Wednesday when we see more of that flow coming in from the Gulf that we're going to see a better chance for some scattered showers as well as a cold front coming in Wednesday and also into Thursday. That'll give us that chance for rain here um on increasing Wednesday as well as into Thursday with those higher rain chances.

[00:03:43]But, the system moves away and goes over toward Texas really by after Wednesday and into Thursday. So, not really moving toward us, Ron. A lot of times when we see these tropical systems in the Gulf and they're moving up directly into the Florida Panhandle, many times those systems would bring us the remnants of a tropical storm or a tropical low. We're just going to see the flow around that that's going to be moving into our area. That's going to increase our Gulf moisture here and bring in that front on Wednesday into Thursday. And that's when we see our rain chances coming back up. So, Tropical Storm Bertha has formed. This is the 8:00 advisory that [snorts] just came in a little while ago and so it is now a tropical storm, but really from what we've been telling you at 4:00, 5:00, and 6:00 about our impacts, nothing's really changing or even the impacts along the Gulf Coast region aren't really changing that much. It's just now up to 40 mph winds. A little earlier it was 35. So, it just got up to that criteria for a tropical storm where they felt confident enough that the structure of that storm is going to be a tropical storm. So, Bertha has developed. It's the second tropical system of the season. We'll watch it move over to the west and just keep an eye on it over the next few days.

[00:04:56]>> Okay, Chris, thanks a lot. And of course we're going to have a lot more on the 11:00 Alive News at 11:00. And if you have to break in and do whatever you have to do with your meteorological type stuff that you do, we'll do it. All right. All right, Chris.