Francine to become hurricane before landfall

AccuWeather

Tropical Storm Francine has quickly strengthened this afternoon. AccuWeather's Hurricane Expert Matt Benz tells us that Francine's future is expected to become a hurricane before landfall.

Transcript

00:00Matt, thanks for joining us. This storm has strengthened a bit. We saw five miles per hour of strengthening and

00:05an increase in forward speed of two miles per hour from the early afternoon to the late afternoon update today.

00:10So what are some of the influences that will determine its future?

00:14Yeah, we are moving over a very warm water into the western Gulf of Mexico. Jeff, basically bath water out there

00:21that is helping to feed the thunderstorms that are creating, of course, this big swirl that is Francine right now.

00:26And you can see how warm this water is.

00:29Temperatures into the 80s, that is well warm enough to obviously strengthen a hurricane.

00:34But we're also talking about the environmental

00:37impacts from the storm, and that's the wind shear or lack thereof here across the area. And a big envelope of moisture

00:42that's over Francine right now. So really over the next 24 hours, we have this window for strengthening.

00:48That's why we are thinking this is going to make it to at least a Category 2 hurricane.

00:51But as a storm moves towards northeast, this map right here showing you the most moisture content of the atmosphere.

00:57Deeper red showing more moisture around, but notice up into Texas and into the southern U.S.

01:02that the moisture gradient drops off. And you'll see with Francine as it moves

01:07towards the Gulf Coast as we head into tomorrow night and into Wednesday,

01:10some of that dry air starts to work its way in, Jeff.

01:12And that could be at least a limitation for just how strong the storm can make it over the next couple of days.

01:18And along with this conversation, Matt, we look to the moisture fields aloft,

01:22but also the wind speed and direction. And overall, while the storm's current heading is north-northwest,

01:28we know, we're confident, it will not continue to extrapolate that forward motion.

01:33It would hit something like Cape, or places like, say, Corpus Christi, Texas.

01:38We're fully expecting this to get nudged a bit by these winds aloft.

01:42Yeah, eventually this is going to encounter a trough in the atmosphere, a big dip in the jet stream right here.

01:47These are steering winds aloft. And right now, the storm generally moving kind of towards the north-northwest,

01:51eventually turning towards the north, and then eventually towards the northeast.

01:54As it begins to interact with this jet stream, this also does another thing.

01:58It's going to introduce shear to the storm as we go into tomorrow night and into Wednesday.

02:02Another limiting factor as far as rapid intensification with the storm.

02:06And you can see the wind shear right now, really not much of anything over the storm.

02:09But as we go forward, you can see the wind shear increasing across the northern Gulf of Mexico.

02:14And that will be, again, a limitation, at least for how strong the storm can make it.

02:18Don't want to downplay the impact from this at all, Jeff, but certainly looking at some more hostile environmental concerns

02:25going into tomorrow night and into Wednesday as the storm marches northward.

02:28So if we look at those three factors, we look at the moisture content, it's a generally green check,

02:33although it's not, again, without limits with that drier air to the west.

02:38We're also keeping an eye on that wind shear, which, again, may keep it in check a little bit.

02:42But overall, there are some conducive things here, like that very warm water, one of three key factors for this.

02:49So, Matt, landfall is going to come into a pretty flat bit of coastline here in Louisiana, most likely.

02:54And some of these parishes don't have a whole lot of elevations.

02:56That'd be a concern for storm surge.

02:58Yeah, certainly a storm surge concern, Jeff.

03:01Anytime you get a large storm like this, it's going to draw the water northward and, of course, raise those water levels

03:06as it comes northward into tomorrow night and into Wednesday.

03:09So not only just the rainfall impact, but, of course, you have the storm surge out ahead of the system.

03:13That's going to be a concern not only just near the landfall point, but we're talking about places as far east as Biloxi,

03:19Mississippi, and as far west as perhaps Houston as well with the storm heading into tomorrow night and Wednesday.

03:24All right. Thank you so much there.

03:25Meteorologist Matt Benz, AccuBit, a hurricane expert.

03:28Matt, thanks for your insight there.

03:30You bet.

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