🔴 LIVE UPDATE: We are tracking Francine’s rain bands as they move ashore…

e e e e e e e e e e e good night everybody I'm meor alst Nicholas Heros so good morning I'm chief meteorologist Jason Smith yes so we're here going to give you a little live update on Francine what is now a tropical storm as it is rolling its way uh Inland at this point and getting sheared to Pieces let me tell you so uh hello I'm still talking over there I've got the Facebook live stream pulled up right next to me so we can see comments and we're excited to answer your questions I see a few people tuning in already a couple questions coming down on the Facebook stream so please ask your question questions and we're going to get right to it yes so this system made landfall as a 100 mph Category 2 storm near tabone Parish about 5:00 this evening and it has weakened considerably it's now a tropical storm and we expect it to just crumble as it moves to the north up into Mississippi overnight tonight and it's current time is 12:44 and so by the time we finish this update we're likely going to get the 1:00 advisory from the National Hurricane Center I expect a continuation of the reduction of the Winds because if you look at the map in the middle between me and Nicholas you can see that there's that little symbol spinning and then all the clouds are away from that simber and that's that year we expected at a landfall it it has really taken this thing apart we saw the forecast models tear this thing apart but not this much I mean the whole entire core has been ripped to shreds and now pushed over our here it was funny we were joking about it earlier it was like this thing is supposed to be moving moving North but it kind of looks like it's not it kind of looks like it's moving our way that's because the whole midlevel and upper level part of it got sh shaved off it did and it's putting some heavier rain over in our area right now we are noting some heavier downpours moving into Mobile and with that we've seen some wind gust up to Tropical Storm force and so we are also monitoring tide gauges and so we're seeing Rising tide levels as well and I expect the coastal flooding element to this to Peak tomorrow morning around 7:00 a.m. and they're like going to be some roads that are flooded out in the typical flood prone areas like the causeway and also the Dolphin Island cway shell Belt Road and the state docks and I think I just lowered our yeah lower lower you see my monitor went down that was funny anyway so I gotta be careful what buttons up this year but anyway I do expect some coastal flooding tomorrow morning the uh tropical storm portion of this as far as our impacts is what we expected that's happening right now yeah and it is going to be moving away from us and taking a look now the forecast track for Francine uh going to be continuing to week in here as it moves to the north uh believe it or not as it gets closer towards north Mississippi and gets into Arkansas Tennessee it is actually going to stall out um and hang out for a little bit we'll take a look I'm going stop pressing buttons I promise I'll just keep my hands behind my hold on Jason's over here pressing every okay there we go yeah I think we're good now uh we're going to be watching this thing stall out actually over Tennessee and it's going to be an interesting satellite picture once it gets to that point we'll look at some of those forecast models in a second so do want to take a look at the overall impact summary once again we've been showing this uh pretty much all day here on FOX 10 and the summary has been there's a few things that are top of priority a tornado risk a tropical storm wind risk a surge risk and also flooding risk and also rib currents those are the few things that we're talking about yeah and so we're under a tornado watch but so far we haven't seen any sign of any significant rotation in our area so it's been a good situation for us this is an effect through about Daybreak tomorrow morning so we will continue to watch for the possibility of tornadoes that may be a little bit more likely to the east across the Florida Panhandle the reason why we haven't seen anything yet is there's a stalled front out in the gulf and so we're on the cool side of that but as we get warm sectored we're also seeing the dry slot wrapping in on the back side of Francine so it'll be interesting to see if we actually do see that torado threat materialized you see some big thunderstorms well offshore of Orange Beach and Gulf Shores right now yeah so I mean you got the center of Francine moving way over there and we're talking about the dry slot there's drier air that's moving in behind this that's where I'm drawing the arrows right now and we have this one main band that we're dealing with and that's the main band that is the Fran scine right now um that's the most of the Punchwood Francine at this point and there seems to only be really I mean you can see this down here there seems to only be one major thunderstorm uh that is associated with this band it's way down there it's producing lots of lightning though which is interesting and these will be tracking off to the north we're going to be watching the Florida Panhandle later on this morning uh for the potential of these bands moving on store Shore and possibly some of the stronger thunderstorms associated with this band moving on Shore so that's something we're going to be watching there yeah and right now we're getting some moderate to heavy rain in Mobile but once we get through this band it may start breaking up some so our heaviest wind and rain in Mobile is going on right now here at about 10 minutes until one and then of course we're going to look at some modeling here this will gradually shift across Balwin County there'll be more rounds that come in around Pensacola and across the Florida Panhandle overnight and with that the winds are going to start shifting and becoming more southerly and that's what could drive up our tide levels we're already starting to see that on some of the gauges out there but uh you're just switching back and forth with with reflectivity and velocity reflectivity shows us rainfall velocity shows us rotation and there's just not any major rotation going on it kind of looks like this band that we're watching that's offshore that's really convective is kind of linear in nature meaning it's kind of oriented north to south so we'll see how that plays out once you start getting in the East and Southeast quadrant tornadoes are a little less likely than they are in the Northeast quadrant of a tropical system is it's making landfall um I'm tell you looking at some of the comments there uh so overall to summarize tornado threat is like Sophia is SS going to get a tornado uh our tornado threat is very low right right now and I think the highest threat as Jason just mentioned would be in the Far Eastern afar area as the bigger thunderstorms that you see here on radar that are over the gulf right now start to come in but right now this is I hate to say underperformed but it's it it's struggled to get yeah and that's good I mean we don't want to see any more than what we already had we got some Gusty winds out there tonight winds up around 40 mph with some gust possibly a little higher wind impacts are going to be really limited across our area and tell you what actually in the last little bit that yellow area is the tropical storm Forest winds they have trimmed that back from what it was earlier the bay was included now it looks like and this is a product from National Weather Service National Hurricane Center hurricane threats and impacts great product to use it's really simple to look at anywhere in that yellow area that tropical storm Force sustained wind is possible and you see they've even Trimm that back so our Mississippi counties part of Washington County I will say the Tropic storm gusts are definitely possible yeah we've seen that downtown at brookly field which is right on the edge of the bay the winds are out of the East so kind of unimpeded to see the wind coming into that particular location we've had winds at about 30 mph with gust to 40 it's not been as high at Mobile Regional Airport you can see right now 21 M an hour out of the East yeah that's sustain with and I actually wanted to pull up this is Mobile Regional and Mobile downtown uh 21 East at 21 and downtown east at 29 uh so not not nothing crazy I'll mention uh few comments about Street flooding out there uh because that might be happening with the heavier rain that we're seeing right now in Mobile so that's a good point there um I want to take a look offshore here 31 gusting the 38 still East at Orange Beach too that buoy is about what 15 miles south 15 oal miles so yeah so this Orange Beach buoy we still got a due east wind it has not shifted out of the south or east Southeast yet that's going to happen as the circulation moves on Shor more the streamlines showing that it should be a little bit more east Southeast right now yeah that that's I'm wondering if that's a local effect from a thunderstorm or something we'll go back to radar in a second but so here's the winds across the area right now Gulf Shores out of the East at 24 this is sustained winds right now uh 22 out of the southeast in Pascagoula 21 at Mobile Regional Airport so these winds are not crazy uh no not at all so uh it's going to be a breezy night there's going to be some rain uh but right now I'm not the the impacts have not been very significant uh wind gusts they're getting up there slowly yeah we're looking at Dolphin Island right now we've got a wind gust of 38 knots so that's about 45 mil an hour or so 44 miles an hour uh it is a Southeast wind at Dolphin Island so we are getting some wind shift out there in some places and uh as wind comes around more out of the South that's what's going to start driving our Tides up along with the pull of the sun and the moon it's a strong tide for tomorrow morning according to the tide calendar yeah and this is it's going to be interesting cuz I want to go and pull up the forecast wind Gus this is the National Weather Service wind it's way overdone but I think you can get the idea of when the peak is it's in the morning right around 4:00 a.m. there is when we get our strongest wind gust and then notice through the day on Thursday it pulls back uh wind gusts to 20 at 6 p.m. on Thursday might even be a bit much according to this forast I think I have a different forecast model pulled in here I expect it to be a breezy day tomorrow but I don't expect it to be a situation where we're having horrific winds but you'll definitely notice something's up when you wake up tomorrow yeah and they've issued a wind advisory for a good chunk of our counties tomorrow just to account for that um here's the timing this is a better model I think this is a this is a more realistic interpretation and I think it's more realistic because you can kind of tell where that band is right on it cuz you see I I'll point it out on the map uh there's this area of darker colors here where the stronger winds are that's associated with that that band of thunderstorms that's moving through with Francine that we saw on the radar so behind that you might have some periods of weaker gust then you might have some periods where gust push 40 mph push tropical storm Forest 6:00 a.m. things are starting to wind down and I think through the day on Thursday things wind down and I'll be honest probably we get to see uh some periods of sunny skies there look at the wind direction though on Thursday out of the South and then getting out of the South and West and that is going to be pushing water on Shore here's that storm surge forecast uh and you can see Peak surge in our area would be around 2 to 4 feet so coastal flooding as we mentioned earlier in the typical spots will be uh possible there yeah and right now Waveland Yacht Club showing Tides running about 3 ft above normal along the Mississippi Coast and so it's possible that places like battery and Alabama Port will'll see tides in that range too Dolphin Island I'm thinking a little closer to 2 to three feet but we could be up into that three plus feet in the bayou uh we got to watch around the mouth of dog River the normal flood prone areas with the possibility of some storm surge it will be lower across the Panhandle but we'll still see above average tides in the morning yeah and I'll also mention that the surf is going to be rough at the beaches too there and we've actually yes and we've already seen some beach erosion I've seen some comments about that uh we have a coastal flood warning that's been issued a significant Coastal flood when we say that the cosway is going to flood and I think that's going to be uh larger impact there this is a pretty detailed map I'll take this full screen for us so we can actually see it uh this is a very detailed map to show what potential storm surge could be it's not perfect but it gives you an idea of certain places that could flood let's go kind of near pasula in South Mobile County where you can see your typical places your low lying places will be the places that do flood uh South Mobile County it doesn't show this West End Dolphin Island right there the water's coming over on the West End I me there's no question about it with the serpan so rough that it's a wind driven tide I also want to tell you that we've got the new advisory down the 1:00 a.m. advisory on Francine it is a 50 mph tropical storm now so as we were saying as Nichols was tell you is getting sheered apart 50 mph system it's moving Northeast at 14 pressure up to 988 so this thing is basically falling apart but we still are going to see significant impacts overnight tonight with Rising water levels along the coast and then of course we're got to watch these thunderstorms for the possibility of tornadic development yeah and I mean we'll be watching it this I think one of the biggest impacts of course will be the causeway flooding because that will be likely during uh Peak tide Peak rush hour time on Thursday morning people going to be trying to get out so Causeway is probably not going to be an option tomorrow morning just keep keep that in mind might even see a little bit of coastal flooding on the Eastern Shore there in the very typical low-lying spots so here's the big picture right now we just got that new advisory once again so what was it winds 50 milph now this storm is definitely coming down look at the radar loop over the past hour or so the core the core is gone I mean completely gone we saw that on satellite too uh right now the main thing is that larger band so what you need to expect overnight um periods of heavy rain definitely we actually shockingly still have this flood watch right it we've been dry and rainfall totals we're not expecting them to be that high yeah it takes more rain this time of the year I mean the trees and all are drawing the moisture out of the ground so the ground is not saturated the evaporation rate's pretty high uh there are some flood warnings to our West but our area it's I think it's going to be a smaller uh rainfall situation yeah I did want to show this I pulled this in this is some of the rainfall totals uh in Louisiana and you look at places like k where you're pushing 9 in and you go even further to the West almost 10 over Lake ponter train there uh near mandaville around 7 and half to 8 in so they got all the rain that was near the core of the storm look at us uh we haven't even hit an inch we haven't hit an inch maybe this band will do it moving across Mobile Regional Airport right now um so we may end up with just like a 2-in rainfall total something like that you know we can handle that uh so the main issues the reason why the water level's going to Rising near the coast is coastal flooding because of tide and wind and it's not really related at all to the amount of rainfall we're seeing all right so let's as I was about to get into for a second it was what are we expecting overnight you see this forecast model gets Lively with that big band that we were showing on radar earlier so around 4 5 6 a.m. we'll be watching in the Panhandle see if those thunderstorms get active but notice how quickly on Thursday things clear out I mean we could see sunshine definitely we are getting that dry slot that's 700 a.m. and so we might see some sunshine along with really Breezy conditions and higher than normal tides and we go through the day that that boundary is going to keep shifting over into Walton County so I really don't see a ton of rain during the day tomorrow what we're going to deal with the main brunt of this is going to be tonight from a rainfall perspective and any kind of severe weather possibilities then tomorrow we'll start to see clearing the Panhandle we still may have active weather of course Nicholas is planning on being here through the morning show tomorrow that might be interesting just to tune in to watch to see how well he's holding up but meteorologist Matt barentine will be here too and he should be rested and ready yeah um we'll see how it goes we've been running it full gear I mean full gear over the past few days I mean that's what we do you know anytime there's a tropel system we know it's a big deal for everybody and we're passionate about it so it's going to be some extra hours but we like doing it and that you know we can be here here so if we get a tornado warning you'll have somebody you know you can tune in you know we're going to be on air with any information that's important uh so some of the comments and I'm running through these hcast models there's a couple different versions of the H Triple was a little slow I was kind of surprised by that uh but running through these you can see on Thursday everything's fine uh to address a couple of the comments uh leaksville Mississippi you're going to get some Breezy conditions especially over the next little bit here this is our graph model you're closer towards that center of the stor all of our Mississippi county closer to seven center of the storm so it will be Breezy overnight you might have some sprinkles some periods of rain I think that's about it right yeah we got a pretty good little shower down around Locale right now it's coming up 63 that might bring some gustier winds to leaksville but uh you're also further Inland which will mitigate the wind potential yes um for mobile rain and wind that's the story in fact some of the heaviest rain occurring right now uh we'll see over the next few hours as the winds Peak I think in the morning we could get some more Dy conditions just as the pressure gradient gets tighter uh and things keep going but otherwise things will be clearing rather quickly on Thursday uh place like Pensacola by Thursday afternoon you have the chance of seeing partly sunny skies maybe even mostly sunny skies at that point I think we end the day Thursday rather nice Breezy quiet kind of almost dare I say Pleasant on THS yeah and Friday looks good you know they getting into the weekend we're going to recover from this very quickly not that I'm expecting a lot of damage but I mean the the the weather conditions are going to improve rapidly and we'll start to see things calming down and maybe by Saturday the golf May calm down a little bit back you notice in this model there's still a lot of spin there I mentioned this the system stalls out this forecast model tries to bring the remnant spin of this thing over which would just mean same thing we'd have few clouds around a couple showers and that's about it right um I want to go back to radar one more time before we wrap this thing up uh here's what's going on right now and and uh ask your questions in the comments here let me double check the YouTube comments as well make sure let's see I think we're good here so Fort Morgan um Fort Morgan might be interesting getting rough surf out there it's right now yeah we're getting some rain moving in across the the it looks like far out on the tip maybe not quite as bad but we're definitely looking at some downpours yeah we're definitely getting some downpours there and all the way to little lagon so stormy night no doubt about it and wind wind shifted out of the southeast down for Morgan now okay so and I was going to say we uh during the newscast we even have a little bit of lightning so don't be surprised if you hear some Thunder overnight uh checking in a couple other areas Gul Shores Orange Beach you're getting some of the Heavy Rain none of these things are spinning right now uh so it's just the rain just the wind at this moment a similar story for Fair Hope and Daphne uh in the morning once you get towards Daphne Spanish Fort right on the Eastern Shore we'll keep an eye out for any coastal flooding issues especially of course when we get to the causeway I think the causeway tomorrow morning might have some issues we've said that about a thousand times I would be surprised I would be almost shocked if we didn't have water across the causeway so and of course alot we've been talking about it all day alot is prepared for that oh that's interesting yeah bab battery is a solid one foot above normal of the normal high tide and it's climbing rapidly I think we're heading to about 3 ft above normal Ino battery before it's all said and done so definitely Coastal I'll take the radar down sh Belt Road you know the usual spots the state docks uh Marshall's Marine area likely going to see pretty significant tide tomorrow morning and I mean as you were and you've been saying this all day it is because that we already having a stronger tide on top of the onshore flow that we're already get right yeah tides are not always at a certain level high and low sometimes there's very little difference between the high and low tide that's what we call it neep tide and then sometimes we have a really strong tide range and when we get close to the spring uh and ainal equinoxes we normally have stronger tides and we're in that range right now and so Peak tie tomorrow morning is already astronomically high and then we're going to add storm surge on top of that um uh tornado watch for bow County yes that does continue but right now nothing is spinning uh so just keep the phones on just in case but I'm really not seeing much at this moment good this is a go to sleep with the phone on talking this is this is sleeping weather right this really is kind of sleeping weather uh it's not bad at all just you just have to have that phone on make sure you can get an alert if something does pop up if something is out there um I saw another comment that I wanted to and most of the tornadoes that form around a chopal system are ef- zeros and e1s they're not usually super strong tornadoes and they can be very brief uh they can spin up very quickly they can move very quickly but they're not normally just dead devastating tornadoes like you see in Central and Northern Alabama or an IR are in the spring season um this is interesting power uh uh power is out by the Willcox exit I even if it's it's Gusty and whenever we get 35 m per hour gusts you know occasionally I feel like that's always a possibility so I wouldn't be like I think we said this earlier I would not be surprised if we have a couple power outages I don't think they'll last long uh this is not something where like the it gets to the topical storm strength and the winds are too strong for power Crews to go out this is this is not that bad yeah and the there's no lightning so it might be helpful for those that do have isolated power outages for them to get the power back on if we see that so once again to kind of review uh Coastal Mississippi Coast uh Southern bobel County Causeway Dolphin Island Our concern right now and heading into the morning is the coastal flooding issue we're already seeing tide gauges registering Higher and Higher by the minute and this will continue as we keep on with the onshore flow Eastern Shore the low-lying areas like if you go down to the municipal Pier on the beach the water might be up a little bit waves might be crashing tomorrow morning it might be cool tomorrow morning to head down to the pier but otherwise I don't think we have any issues for school the question how much longer till it's over uh by the time we get towards the morning hours and I mean later morning hours on Thursday it is wrapping up for places like mobile uh we're starting to see Sunshine come out it'll still be Breezy uh Pensacola Fort w beach D Navar it's going to take a little longer but then it'll just be working out there um checking on how things are going the I have a little property down on the coastline and there's water up in the yard oh there is definitely so that's going to be not far away from the Grand Bay Reserve area uh by battery so we're definitely seeing the coastal flooding happening now so if you're right on the coast uh you would already know that it would be happening but of course uh places right there uh couple other reminders with that coastal flooding tomorrow and over the next few days we have that rough surf high risk of RI currents there's no need there's no need there's no need to get in the water we had some issues with that today I think the National Weather Service was kind of tweeting out on social media and putting on social media like you cannot be in the water you cannot be in the water that's something that we pushed really hard yeah and you know a lot of folks were trying to go out and do some surfing today it was really messy um there will be better surfing opportunities once this thing kind of passes and then you just have real better wave periods and a and a better swell but but for just swimming no not until probably Saturday yeah no and and then maybe not that yeah it's going to take a little time because especially if the lading goes around uh flooding a couple inches of rain not too worri we'll see if any of these uh happen to stick over the same area for a long time wind as I mentioned Gusty conditions mostly in the western half of our area peing in the pre-dawn hours and then starting to fade through the day on Thursday Sunshine comes out on Thursday I'm trying to think if there's any other impacts this is a tropical storm guys yeah a hurricane hit Louisiana but it's a tropical storm here we're going to keep an eye on it overnight here on Fox 10 News if we see anything that looks torn we'll break in and let you know and you can tune in for our morning show tomorrow morning for a full update and I think you'll see just how high The Tide is in some places with our live reports yes we got plenty of live coverage coming way we thank you for joining us hey we'll keep an eye out on the social media channels for any questions but for now we're going to just take a break and we'll keep an eye on things here at foxt have a great night e