Francine strengthening as it heads to Louisiana

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The center of Francine has been large and not well structured today with signs of dry air affecting the storms ability to consolidate a central core and become a hurricane. Late this afternoon there has been a burst of convection close to the center which could be the latest attempt for the center to “wall off” the dry air intrusion and begin to strengthen.

As the storm builds it will be picked up by an approaching shortwave trough moving over Texas. To the east of this storm is a ridge of high pressure. These features combined will steer the storm northward and increasing more northeastward toward the Louisiana coastline Wednesday afternoon. The dry air and increasing shear as Francine moves into the northern Gulf of Mexico will determine how strong this storm can become. There is still the possibility of this becoming a low end category 2 hurricane prior to landfall.

Models have continued the trend which began overnight to nudge the track of the storm eastward. If this eastward shift does happen, it will bring more of the effects of the storm to higher population areas of southeastern Louisiana including New Orleans.

As the storm moves ashore it will bring up to 10 feet of storm surge along the southern coast of Louisiana an Lake Pontchartrain could see 3 to 5 feet of surge. In addition, rainfall amounts of 4-8 inches of rain with localized areas of up to 12 inches of rain from Louisiana into Mississippi and western Tennessee.

As the storm moves northward it will drag dry air into the Gulf of Mexico and eventually over Florida by the weekend. This dry air along with a shift to a west and southwesterly wind is likely to cut down on our rain chances in west central Florida by this weekend and into early next week.