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Major hurricane threat for the U.S. Gulf Coast
AccuWeather
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9/24/2024
AccuWeather's Bernie Rayno and Alex DaSilva continue to monitor the tropical rainstorm in the Caribbean that is expected to strengthen into a major hurricane and hit the U.S. Gulf Coast this week.
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00:00
We want to bring you the latest on this storm and joining us right now is AccuWeather lead hurricane expert
00:05
meteorologist Alex De Silva
00:07
Alex I looked at the I'm going to call up the satellite picture here
00:10
And I want you to see if you notice what I'm noticing here
00:13
If you think I'm correct you can clearly see now on the infrared satellite picture some of those clouds the yellows and especially the reds
00:21
Trying to wrap around now on the northern and let's see if it gets on the western side of our center of circulation
00:30
Yes, certainly starting to see the blow-up of thunderstorms trying to wrap around the center of circulation
00:34
That's really the one thing that's missing for this to become a tropical storm
00:38
I think the winds are actually closing in on tropical storm strength now
00:41
And it wouldn't surprise me if the next National Hurricane Center
00:44
Update coming up here in the next hour and a half or so that they name this storm
00:49
Things are looking a little bit better in terms of the organization of this tropical rainstorm right now
00:54
The exclusive AccuWeather eyepath showing that tropical storm certainly by 8 o'clock
01:00
tonight and then a move into the Gulf of Mexico as we go through tomorrow and
01:05
History tells us Alex that when these systems get into the eastern Gulf of Mexico. They not only
01:13
Intensify but oftentimes they rapidly intensify
01:17
Yeah
01:18
That area of the of the Atlantic Basin that extreme northwestern Caribbean southeastern Gulf of Mexico
01:24
We've seen a lot of storms here in the past few years
01:26
You know even five years ten years that have really rapidly intensified in that zone right there
01:32
And I'm concerned that this is going to be no different
01:34
You can really see this the big blow-up of green on your screen there
01:38
That is the moisture really starting to fan out you can see it essentially pushing that yellow area away
01:44
That's the dry air to the north. It's starting to create its own environment
01:48
And then what you also see is notice that blue moving from the Keys towards, South Florida
01:54
That's called the outflow and that's a sign of
01:58
weakening wind shear
01:59
Yeah, indeed you can really see that again that little area of low pressure to the northwest is backing away the wind shear
02:06
I think is going to start to really decrease over the storm here in the next 24 hours or so
02:11
And so you're already starting to see the storm start to what we call breathe
02:14
You can see the the fanning of those high-level clouds around the top of the storm moving in a clockwise formation
02:21
That's indication indications to me that the storm is starting to breathe
02:25
It's in entering a more healthy environment
02:27
And I would expect to see the storm start to strengthen here in the near in the near future
02:32
And then when you talk about water temperature, I mean, it's just high octane. It's like gasoline on the fire
02:37
I mean water temperatures in the middle 80s. That's not the only thing you're looking at though Alex. Yeah the water temperatures
02:43
This is where they are the warmest in the entire Atlantic Basin that Western Caribbean
02:47
It's not only that it's the depth of that warm water. We call that ocean heat content
02:51
We've really been pounding that point home
02:53
This is what we're really can lead to rapid intensification and what the research has shown can really lead to rapid intensification
03:00
Because tropical systems they naturally mix up the water
03:03
But if you're mixing up warm water back up to the surface that can allow the essentially that tropical heat engine to continue to run
03:10
And so a lot of times where we see storms rapidly intensify
03:14
It's correlated to where the highest areas of ocean heat content are located
03:18
You can see there the Western Caribbean and into the eastern Gulf of Mexico
03:21
That's where we can see really high ocean heat content and that's why we're concerned about the rapid intensification
03:27
And it was yesterday before all other known sources that we forecasted a major hurricane
03:33
In that area that her happened before Accuweather early started yesterday at 6 a.m
03:39
And then you made the announcement at 1030 that everything that we were looking at tells us that not only is this going to be?
03:46
A major hurricane, but it's going to be a major hurricane at landfall. Yeah, indeed, and it's not only about that
03:51
It's the size of the story. I think this is going to be a pretty large system
03:55
So don't pay attention and necessarily where the center of the storm tracks if you live outside that area
04:00
This is going to have widespread impacts even beyond the scope of the cone
04:04
And so we're concerned about flooding potential and the the storm surge is what I'm really concerned about
04:09
Not only are we going to have a strengthening storm, but we're also going to have a growing storm
04:14
It's going to be large. And so these larger storms can produce a lot more storm surge
04:18
I'm concerned about Tampa Bay and then all the way up into the Big Bend area
04:22
We could see a very very significant and potentially deadly storm surge all the way up in those areas now later on today Alex
04:28
we're gonna zone in on that iPod so you can see the farthest west toward the
04:33
Florida and Alabama state line for this east just south of Florida, but we're gonna wait
04:41
Until we see the exact center of circulation
04:44
But the thought is Alex that we're gonna we're gonna tighten that up later today
04:48
Yeah
04:49
I think the chance of a direct impact on Tampa is
04:52
Pretty small at this time not to say the impacts aren't going to be pretty significant again
04:56
I'm very concerned about the flooding and the storm surge potential into Tampa Bay
05:00
So we're probably we're probably gonna trim the the outer edge of that cone to around Tampa
05:05
Maybe even a little north and the western side of the cone we can probably trim that, you know
05:10
Pretty significantly on the western side as well again kind of narrowing in as we get closer to landfall
05:16
We're kind of narrowing in on where we're most concerned about again since the very beginning
05:20
We've always been concerned about the Big Bend of Florida and it looks like that
05:24
That's where the storm is going to be going. All right Accuweather lead hurricane expert Alex DeSilva Alex
05:29
Thanks for the great information here on Accuweather Early
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