hey everybody chief meteorologist Brad penovich here we've got a lot to talk about Francine installed cold front possibly another system developing off the Carolina coast there's a lot going on here uh that's going to have an impact on us and other parts of the country so let's get right to it first and foremost obviously Francine is the story of the day it is gaining strength and folks in Southeast Louisiana need to pay particular strong attention to this huge storm surge risk with this heavy rainfall and yes a significant wind risk as I'm watching this today this is on the border of becoming a c category to Hurricane again the category is all about the wind not the water so just be cautious getting reading too much into that there is a lot of water already being pushed towards the coast in fact water levels are already coming up we are going to see some significant storm surge and flooding in Southeast Louisiana Coastal Mississippi and even probably Coastal parts of Alabama but Louisiana will take the brunt of this system and as always storm surge is the big story so let's get right to that storm surge this was the track from this morning we'll get an updated track it's not going to change a lot but as you can see parts of lower tabone Parish lefou um parts of Jefferson lower Jefferson and plaman Parish are all going to see some big time um storm surge and particularly these Bays like tabone Bay u a chaala bay um these areas here they tend to see some really really big storm surge and you can see that boy there's definitely going to be some high water in some of these areas in fact you get in these areas south of Morgan City you're probably took it looking at maybe 8 to 10 maybe 11t of water also in Lake Pon train some pockets of of flooding there as well because you're pushing water into the lake here this is always a problem with Lake pona train you push water in there it can't go back out so water on the NorthShore and even areas um in Lake Mora actually could see some heavy rain so up around the NorthShore don't be surprised like mandaville area there's always flooding there um there will likely be some flooding issues in parts of the NorthShore as well but it's really down here in lower tabone and lower lefou I think we're going to see the bulk of the big storm surge uh and that's why those areas are under evacuation orders now things get interesting once it moves Inland the steering currents weaken and kind of fall apart and you can see we've got this stalled front sitting here now anytime you see a stalled front that's a signal the steering currents are weak because if the steering currents aren't pushing fronts through they're not going to push tropical systems or hurricanes through so once the system moves Inland it's going to get up here and get stuck this stalled front is going to be in the vicinity for most of the week and into the weekend and early next week and that means potentially along this stall front you're going to see waves of rain and also potentially maybe even another system develop off the Southeast coast and that's something that could be a big rain maker for the Eastern Carolinas we already know there's going to be some rain from the stalf front in the western Carolinas but the combination of the two definitely could produce some heavy rain for the Carolina so let's get to that future cast so so let's get right into the forecast I've been asked a couple times is the rain heading our way this weekend associated with Francine well it's kind of a tough question cuz it's kind of a yes no answer but directly I can say no Francine is not going to have a direct impact on us but an indirect impact because the circulation itself is going to be well to our West but what's happening you see the high pressure here this is got clockwise flow so you got high pressure pushing moisture in you've got a stalled front here the low pressure with the Francine or the remnants all of this funnels moisture into the Carolinas and that's what's going to produce our rain so the combination of having the high pressure to the North and the stalled front and Francine it's not that Francine is causing the rain this weekend it's contributing because if we didn't have the stalled front and that high pressure to the north we probably wouldn't see any rain so I can't say it's completely Francine but as we go through time you can see Francine makes landfall weakens to our West but you could see the rain bands I mean there's a lot of moisture here off the Southeast coast number there is a stalled front somewhere in here and the flow of moisture is straight at us trying to feed into the remnants of Francine so we're kind of on the train tracks for that load of moisture heading to our West so we will see rainfall scattered now it's not going to rain the entire weekend and it's nothing that's going to be severe or causing wind issues so if you can deal with rain you'll be okay it's not going to cancel flights here um it's just going to be rain right the problem is if it rains in certain spots for long long period of time you get flooding so we get into the weekend so this is basically Saturday um we go into Sunday notice what's happening off the Southeast coast Francine's remnants kind of fall apart and something starts to form here off the east coast I talked about this yesterday quite a bit I do think a new low pressure system will form on the stalled front that's completely separate from Francine it's not Francine it's completely different on the front and this actually could end up bringing some heavy rain to the Eastern Carolina so the first wave of rain is likely going to be the mountains and foothills with scattered showers elsewhere by next week this secondary low could bring Heavy Rain to the Eastern Carolina you see it actually pretty aggressive in some of our modeling here of this low pressure cranking up and so this is by next week um and I'm only going 120 hours out because Beyond there there's still some uncertainty but just let me show you the Hurricane Center already thinks there's a 20% chance of development in that region and model guidance suggests as well that there is a possibility of tropical development here in the Carolinas and you could see that eventually maybe moving Inland to the Carol not strong this is tropical depression strength or lower but there's certainly the potential of something there now when we look at the rainfall forecast there's actually U we sometimes call this bold there's two influences here the first batch of rain right here this is the Francine stalled front rain as you get Southeast winds the second big surge of moisture here in eastern North Carolina this is from that secondary low and you can see some of this rain could be really heavy so there's a lot going on here as I mentioned with this stalled front Francine to the west and the possibility of a new low pressure system the end result of all this is there's going to be scattered showers and storms this weekend it's just not going to be consistent or all the time because we're kind of sandwiched between these two elements so um if you've got plans at the coast or plans to do anything I wouldn't change them unless you need 100% dry weather but I would keep Ane the weather and if you do have outdoor plans have a rain plan you should never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever a million times plan an outdoor event and not have a plan for rain it's really silly always have a plan for rain or in Clement weather that's the nature of doing anything outdoors the chances of getting a perfect weather day are pretty slim in the Carolinas any time of year so always have a backup plan just in case