know how the school board is them even if we tell them for y'all to close it's up to them to make a decision all right I got to do this can I be quiet do you want to come in here I can shut up [Music] you look amazing B should I stop it and then come back no I just told Donald he looked good manbe here we go good morning from the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles Louisiana I'm meteorologist Donald Jones with your 10:30 a.m. update on what is now tropical storm Francine it has finally uh developed a closed off low-level circulation it now meets all of the criteria to become by definition a tropical storm and it's already had maximum sustained winds near 50 miles per hour for the last 24 hours or so so it is now officially designated a tropical storm it finally gets its name we can stop calling it the potential tropical Cyclone which I know is confusing the hell out of a lot of people um so now it's just a regular ordinary Garden variety tropical storm that's coming here to kill us like normal um so essentially what we're going to be looking at we're going to talk about here is the the latest forecast track which has shifted somewhat East over the last uh few hours again we saw a little bit of an Eastward shift to the forecast track last night and we've seen another little bit of Eastward shift as we've gone through the morning this morning that's certainly some good news for those of you watching across Southeast Texas not so good news for those of you watching across parts of South Central Louisiana in and around Vermillion Bay so we're going to talk about all of that and the expected impacts across the region here over the next little while as always this is a live interactive briefing so if you have any questions as we go through our briefing feel free to post them in our comment section and we'll go through them just as soon as we wrap up our briefing let's go ahead and jump into it here if I can get my clicker to work properly again the tropical cyclone in the southern Gulf has now developed into a tropical storm it is officially gotten its name it is the one two three four five sixth name of the Season tropical storm Francine now maximum sustained winds are near 50 mph now the overall forecast philosophy hasn't changed a whole lot we were expecting it to become a tropical storm today it is still forecast to become at least a category one hurricane before making landfall somewhere across South Central Louisiana Wednesday evening into Wednesday night hurricane watches and storm surge watches have both been posted as of this morning we'll talk about that here in just a little while as well this is the 10: a.m. advisory from the national Hurricane Center you can see maximum sustained winds now or has been near 50 mph and continues to be near 50 mph but now that it has developed that lowlevel circulation some intensification some more ready intensification is likely to occur over the next 36 hours or so um just the looking at the satellite here this morning the uh the overall structure of the storm has gotten much better and one as that continues to get better uh we'll see a more significant intensification I'll show you that here in just a second it's still not moving very quickly we're looking at about a north-northwest movement at about 5 miles hour that is going to continue for probably about another 24 hours and then as it begins this curve off to the north and Northeast it's going to begin to accelerate into a coal front that coal front that's actually came through the area the other day it's been sitting just off the northern Gulf Coast it's going to begin to accelerate into that storm all the way through landfall so this is not a situation where we're expecting the storm to stall anywhere it is going to continue to move and it's actually probably going to be accelerating to around about 15 milph as it makes landfall and moves Inland beyond that again it is expected to be a category 1 hurricane a category 2 hurricane is not out of the realm of possibility at this point we could be looking at a low-end mid-range Category 2 hurricane um we always like to say prepare for one category higher than what's actually being forecasted so we're officially forecasting a category one we want to prepare for at least a category two with this storm taking a look at the visible satellite imagery this morning you can see this large blob of sto of cloudiness that is Francine and despite the fact that it looks like a little bit of a mess it actually is much more organized uh than it was this time yesterday um you can see this this large cluster of uh a very white kind of clouds here let me see if I can find my my pencil tool here um and this is what we refer to as a central dense overcast this whole area right here and that's an indication of the storm getting itself better organized now the lowle circulation is somewhere up in this area here so most of the the cloud cover is still displaced from the center at this point but it is beginning to wrap around that low-level circulation so as it does so that's an indication of the storm getting itself better organized and an indication of intensification and I expect to see that uh as we continue to go through the day today and over the next couple of days as I mentioned hurricane watches and storm surge watches have been posted across the region the areas highlighted in that uh the purple color there that is the hurricane watches so that extends from from includes aadia Vermilion Lafayette Iberia St Martin St Mary and Eastern Cameron parishes a hurricane watch of course means that hurricane conditions are possible within the watch area within 48 hours and then a tropical storm watch has now been issued for kashu Jeff Davis Western Cameron uh in Southwest Louisiana as well as orange Southern Jefferson County and Southern Newton counties in South East Texas and very similar to the the hurricane watch a tropical storm watch means that tropical storm conditions are possible in the watch area within the next 48 hours so we're within roughly two days of landfall at this point those watches have gone up by this time tomorrow those parts of those areas will be upgraded to tropical storm warnings at that time in addition we also have a storm surge watch that is now in effect for parts of the region this is going to be for Coastal portions of these parishes and counties obviously the storm surge isn't going to get that far inland except perhaps in Cameron where it's very flat uh but storm surge watches are now in effect for Cameron Parish as well as ver million St Martin and St Mary parishes as well as Coastal portions of Jefferson County a storm surge watch that means storm surge of 3 feet or greater Is Possible within the watch area within 48 hours this is the area where we could potentially see uh the most significant storm surge and we'll talk more about the actual values of those storm surge here in just a moment let's talk now about the the probabilities of seeing tropical storm force winds in your particular area across the region I'm going to go ahead and make this full screen so you can take take a little bit closer look at it there you can see these values if you've been watching us the last couple of days these have been going up so we're currently looking at about a 70 to 80% chance of seeing tropical storm Forest winds across Coastal parts of Vermillion Iberia St Martin and St Mary parishes a roughly 60 to 70% chance of seeing tropical storm force winds across Southwest Louisiana so that's going to include the Lake Charles area and then a 30 to 60% chance of seeing tropical storm force winds across Southern parts of Jefferson and orange counties and as the storm continues to get better organized and continues to uh approach the coastline we'll see these probabilities continue to go up even further uh by tonight and again more so by tomorrow so at this point there's a pretty high probability that we're going to be seeing at least tropical storm force winds that's Winds of 40 miles per hour or greater across a large swath of Southwest and South Central Louisiana even parts of coastal uh say Jefferson County Orange County those areas could potentially see some gust to 40 miles hour as well those of you watching us from Southeast Louisiana you are also looking at pretty high probabilities of seeing at least tropical storm force winds from Baton Rouge over towards New Orleans and up towards the NorthShore of Lake Pon train as well this is the probability of seeing hurricane force winds across the area these are lower because we're expecting a much narrower swath of Hurricane force winds uh if they develop so we're looking at lower overall probabilities but generally a 20 to 30% chance of seeing hurricane force winds across Coastal parts of Vermillion Iberia St Mar Martin and St Mary parishes and then a 10 to 20% chance of seeing hurricane force winds across Coastal portions of Cameron Parish and again just like with the tropical storm probabilities these probabilities will also go up as the storm intensifies and as it approaches the northern Gulf Coast now when can we expect these winds to actually begin this hasn't changed a whole lot which is a good thing we like to see consistency in our forecast tracks we're looking at the the tropical storm force winds to begin it looks like sometime Wednesday morning between about 8: a.m. and noon for those uh tropical storm force winds to begin so this is your deadline if you if you intend to evacuate if you intend to make preparations to ride the storm out this is when you want to have those preparations completed by Wednesday morning around 8:00 am. because at this point conditions will begin to deteriorate across a large swath of the region this is the earliest possible time of arrival reasonably speaking for uh for those tropical storm Forest winds so we could be looking at it as early as very late Tuesday evening between about 8:00 p.m. and midnight but the most likely time is going to be Wednesday morning now let's talk a little bit now about what's actually steering the storm here and what's actually causing it to do what it's going to do the storm is presently moving to the Northwest at about 5 miles per hour it's moving fairly slow there are two things actually driving the storm we've got an area of high pressure over here in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico of course winds around areas of high pressure spin clockwise like so there's also a cold front over the northern Gulf Coast here this has wind that are actually moving kind of East kind of parallel to the coastline so the storm is on the outer periphery of this high pressure area and it's going to continue to kind of slowly drift to the Northwest eventually it's going to begin to come under the influence of this Cal front along the northern Gulf Coast that's going to cause it to turn more northward and eventually more northeastward and that's why the forecast track is going to eventually kind of curve then it's going to get caught up in this cold front and begin to accelerate off to the Northeast and that's why we're expecting the storm to actually increase in forward speed as it approaches the coastline and moves Inland it's going to get caught up in this coal front the other thing that this coal front is going to potentially do is provide a whole bunch of wind shear across the northern Gulf Coast so conditions down in the southern Gulf of Mexico as I'm going to show you here in just a second are fairly favorable for intensification but as the storm approaches the coast the wind shear associated with this cold front May begin to kind of tear the storm apart so it may reach its maximum intensity before it actually gets on Shore and may actually slowly begin to weaken as it approaches the northern Gulf Coast just something to kind of keep in mind uh as we see this storm develop over the next couple of days let's take a look at the other uh the factors that are affecting the potential intensity of the storm of course sea surface temperatures still running in the mid to Upper 80s across all of the Gulf of Mexico we need at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit to support a tropical system we're well above that we're between about 86 and 88 degrees so sea surface temperatures are certainly supportive of tropical intensification the other thing that we look at as we talked about a moment ago is wind shear the wind Winder across the southern Gulf of Mexico right now is very light you can see that in the the areas in the little light greens and blues there across the southern and western Gulf of Mexico as you get closer to the uh the Gulf Coast though the northern Gulf Coast you can see those areas highlighted in the red that's areas of higher wind she associated with that cold front so the storm is going to be intensifying for the next 24 to 36 hours or so but then as it approaches the coast it's going to begin to run into that wind shear so it may actually begin a little bit of a weakening Trend the Hurricane Center doesn't explicitly call for a weakening Trend but it calls for a a maintenance uh at its current level instead of continued intensification as it approaches the Gulf Coast so um exactly when that storm begins to encounter that wind shear is going to have a large effect as to how much it's going to potentially either stop intensifying or potentially weaken the hope is that it'll encounter that a little bit earlier and so it'll be steadily weakening as it reaches the Coast but we can't count on that at this point because at least according to most of our computer models we are going to be looking at at least a a sustain a storm that's maintaining its intensity up through landfall now let's talk about the potential impacts across the region what are we going to expect now all of these impacts are based on the current forecast track if the forecast track or the intensity of the storm changes these impacts of course are going to change along with it the first thing I want to talk about is the potential for very heavy rainfall we're looking at uh roughly about a 15% chance of flash flooding anywhere in the area is highlighted in yellow there so that extends from Bowmont to Lake Charles to Lafayette to New Iberia this is for Tuesday so mainly Tuesday kind of later in the day we're going to start to see those outer rainbands move into the area as late as tomorrow or as early as tomorrow afternoon into tomorrow evening now as we get into Wednesday the overall flood risk gets significantly higher the area highlighted in red there is a 40% or greater chance of seeing flash flooding so that it does include the Lake Charles area and points further east over towards Lafayette New Iberia baton rou over towards New Orleans slide L uh there's a large swath even into Southern Mississippi uh at pretty high risk of seeing flash flooding and this could potentially go even higher as the storm approaches as we get into late tonight and into tomorrow bottom line we're looking at fairly High rainfall totals across the region with us this is normally the case when we're talking about uh any kind of tropical system here are the the forecast rainfall totals across the region generally speaking along the coast and uh and east of where the storms expected to make landfall so that's kind of in and around Vermillion Bay up towards Lafayette East to Baton Rouge looking at anywhere between 6 to 8 inches of rainfall with some localized amounts of over 12 inches that's a foot of rainfall possible in parts of those regions back to the west across Lake Charles up towards Alexandria you're kind of in that yellow area that's a four to six inch rainfall section and then back across Southeast Texas since the storm track has moved somewhat to the east recently the overall rainfall totals have come down so we're looking at anywhere between about one to possibly up to 4 Ines across parts of Southeast Texas essentially east of Houston to bont uh up across Jasper Newton counties Tyler County and Harden County as well so that kind of gives you an idea of what to expect as far as overall rainfall totals talking now about storm surge here this is the the potential for uh the highest storm surge we can expect to experience with this storm we're looking at 5 to 10 feet of storm surge possible essentially from Cameron East to Port fuchan um now not everywhere is going to see that level of storm surge this is kind of a reasonable worst case scenario areas along and east of the center of circulation are going to potentially see this surge if you're on the west side of the storm though you know the the current forecast track brings it in right just west of Vermillion Bay so if that were to verify areas west of the storm Cameron Parish for example would not see this level of storm surge Points East of the the center of circulation landfall though will So based on this current forecast track areas in and around Vermillion Bay 5 to 10 ft of storm surge points further east into Southeast Louisiana 5 to 10 feet of storm surge uh from Port fuchan to the mouth of the Mississippi between 4 and 7 and then uh wrapping around Lake Pon train and Lake morpa anywhere between two to four back further to the west across uh west of Cameron to High Island three to five feet of surge but again that's only going to be uh if you're on the west side of the storm um you can potentially see some Co poal flooding ahead of the storm because when you think about it let me go ahead and I'm going to see if I can back up here just a little bit um this will be a good example so as the storm approaches again in low pressure systems you're looking at a counterclockwise circulation of winds so as the storm approaches the coastline the winds are going to be wrapping counterclockwise around so you can potentially see some coastal flooding initially as the storm approaches across parts of Cameron Southeast Texas then as the storm kind of gets even with you start to see these winds come back around out of the North and that storm surge thread and coastal flooding thread will come to an end so if we're going to see coastal flooding or storm surge across parts of Southeast Texas it's going to occur uh very early on in the storm probably late tomorrow into early Wednesday morning all right so that's pretty much what I have here from the National Weather Service in terms of impacts and the forecast our next briefing is going to be 4 pm this afternoon we'll have another briefing later on tonight at 10 10:30 so if you have no questions and are happy with the forecast you're free free to head out uh if not if you do have a question we are going to answer questions here for the next little while so uh feel free to throw them in our comment section and we will answer them accordingly for those of you still wondering when are we going to do our Parish by parish and county by county breakdowns of expected impacts those are coming uh but it is still till a little too early for that since we're not looking at landfall until sometime Wednesday evening so we'll probably have those either late tonight or sometime tomorrow they are on the way but I want to make sure we have a good handle on exactly where the storm's going to make landfall before I start giving that out because uh once it gets out there it's very hard to take it back um so I want to make sure we have a good understanding of what's going to happen before uh before we get those out there but they are coming uh at some point so let me go ahead and uh and back up here and uh check our comment section see here see if we do have any questions bear with me just a moment if you do have a question please uh throw it in there Bethany says please don't under forecast St Landry Parish all models show us getting us 70 m per hour winds at some point I don't think all models show that but no we're not intentionally under forecasting anybody um you know the the forecasts that we put out are based on our uh our best knowledge backed opinion at the time uh candy ask could it possibly jog back to the West yes it absolutely could that's why we still have this cone of uncertainty let me go ahead and make this full screen again so you can take a little bit of look at it here right now the G of uncertainty essentially extends from roughly the excuse me Texas Louisiana State Line East to New Orleans so you could see a fluctuation in track back or forth either way so U pretty much all of Louisiana uh essentially is in the cone of uncertainty still so if you're uh if you're anywhere in Louisiana you could still potentially see uh this track shift back one way or the other the other thing I want to mention very important to keep in mind the cone of uncertainty that you see here here does not say anything about the potential impacts impacts will extend well outside of that cone of uncertainty saw like on on our storm surge graphic we had storm surge back across into Southeast Texas even though the uh the cone of uncertainty doesn't extend back that way uh so we can have impacts well outside of the cone of uncertainty especially when it comes to flooding and rainfall um but all impacts are possible outside of that cone of uncertainty I'm and says that looks far more organized than yesterday yes it certainly is uh it's finally getting its act together and we expect it to continue to intensify uh for the next couple of days Mary asks is there any Loop current Eddie areas in Francine's path that would fuel intensification uh not that I've seen it's a pretty steady state sea surface temperature out there um at least at the present so um I don't I don't foresee that being too much of a factor steady intensification is forecast there are some models that still show the possibility of a period of Rapid intensification uh but it's not necessarily due to uh to warm edes on in the sea surface temperatures Cherry ask what are the odds that it moves back West to Lake Charles um at this moment not particularly High because most of the computer models are keeping it kind of East towards the ver I Bay Area but it is a possibility it's not something that that we're ruling out is Lake Charles Out of the Woods no definitely not I would I would not say that that anybody in coastal parts of Louisiana is out of the woods at this point at a minimum we're still going to see impacts even if the eye of the storm doesn't move uh directly over us or or nearby you're still going to be looking at significant rainfall and some Gusty winds to Tropical Storm Force um so no Lake Charles is not out of the woods from this Jason ask How likely are track changes over the coming hours almost certainly um with every forecast update There is almost always a track shift one way or the other based on the latest uh computer model information and the expertise of the National Hurricane Center so uh I would say it's almost certain that we're going to see at least somewhat of a track shift over the next uh C few hours and few days Brock's asking is there any reports on school closures there was supposed to be uh unless I was mistaken there was supposed to be a uh press conference at 10: a.m. I didn't actually see it uh yet so I have no reports on school closures at this time I thought they were going to make any kind of announcements regarding that at that meeting uh or at that briefing but I haven't actually seen that briefing take place yet um I expect that will be out at some point today but no I don't have any information on that at present Jamie's asking about the potential for tornadoes that's that's one thing that we haven't really discussed yet with regards to the the threats and the potential impacts yes there will be the risk of tornadoes uh with this historically speaking we usually see tornadoes along and east of the center of circulation that's where the vast majority of tornadoes develop so in this case if we were looking at a landfall right around intra coastal city most of any tornado threat would be kind of east of Vermilion Bay the overall risk across from Lafayette to Lake Charles across Southeast Texas would be relatively low um but it's not uh completely zero even on the west side of the storm so yes tornadoes are a threat with pretty much all landfalling tropical systems and that will be the case with this one as well I'll have more details on that here um probably either late tonight or tomorrow the Storm Prediction Center uh is a little bit slower to get their um their threat levels out with that but once that is available um I'll have that for you Macy says it's gonna rain yes that sums it up it is g to rain Brock ask when will hurricane warnings be issued hurricane warnings will be be issued probably this time tomorrow or thereabouts hurricane warnings are issued about 24 hours uh before landfall so the watches just came out the warnings will be out about 24 hours from now possibly uh very late tonight but I think probably tomorrow morning Bethany says why does St Landry Parish not have any warnings or watches given the models are predicting high winds and high rain totals um well first off we we probably will have a flood watch out at some point it's just not there yet as far as hurricane or tropical storm warnings for St Landry Parish those are also probably coming at some point you're just not within that window um right now we're focused right along the coastline as we get into that time frame window uh you'll see those watches and warnings extended further inland Elizabeth asks how many hours will it take to pass how long are we going to experience these very strong winds that's still a little bit up in the air because it depends on the exact size of the storm and the the radius of the Winds um generally speaking we're probably going to be looking we're going to look at Tropical Storm force winds much longer than hurricane force winds tropical storm force winds like we talked about earlier are going to begin Wednesday morning they're going to continue to it possibly as late as uh Thursday morning so you know you could be looking at up to a 24-hour period uh of wind gusts up the tropical storm Force the um the hurricane force winds are going to be in a much narrower band so it's going to be a much shorter duration uh period so you could be looking at only perhaps if you're looking at just a category one storm maybe just a couple of hours of of actual hurricane force winds U but that's going to depend on the exact size and intensity of the Storm at landfall BR asked will it weaken before landfall with the wind shear and colder Waters not so much colder Waters but there is going to be some increasing wind shear so yeah there is the possibility that we could see some slight weakening before it actually moves a sure um the waters all the way up to the coast are are still very warm though so there's no not going to be any weakening as a result of Colder Waters princess says I feel like Lake Charles is getting under forecasted well here's the thing we don't feel um and what I mean by that is all of our everything all the information I'm giving you right now is based on sound science you know we're not we don't put feelings in our science uh we don't put feelings in our forecasts you know they're all based on uh the latest model data the latest expertise um for pattern recognition and weather patterns in this area so that's what we based our forecasts on uh teresia I think I said that right should Iberia Parish prepare for a direct track impact if not direct it looks like it's gonna be very close right now yes so I would prepare for Hurricane force winds uh in and around the Iberia Parish area Martin St Mary Coastal Vermilion uh those are the areas that I would prepare for Hurricane force winds in right now Ashley's asking about approximate times for coastal flooding and surge for the Avery Island area and all of of areas around Vermillion Bay you're going to be looking at that coastal flooding beginning probably late tomorrow night uh and then kind of ramping up uh into uh Wednesday morning of course the peak is going to be right around the time the storm makes Land fall so it's going to be probably late Wednesday afternoon into Wednesday evening um but it's going to begin as early as possibly late tomorrow night into early Wednesday morning Brandon says that WWL is saying for Bay Region get prepared for a category two is that possible yes a category two is not out of the realm of possibility the official forecast is for a category one right now but we've been saying prepare for a category higher than uh than is actually being being forecasted and so yeah that would be a category to that is certainly within the realm of possibility Aston asked a similar question do you think this storm could overachieve it is certainly possible there's plenty of precedent for that many storms have in the past um so yes it's certainly possible it could be stronger than uh than what we're indicating here uh chesil asks are spin-off tornadoes a thing if we are on the west side it's less likely on the west side there historically have been fewer torn on the west side of the storm but they there are a possibility so it's it's not impossible to get a tornado on the West Side although the overall risk is lower Alicia ask could we see Delta rain in the lacine since it's showing the bulk of the rain in the upper left quadrant the reason for that right now is because of of how was has been pretty lopsided recently most of the uh the rain activity and the winds have been on the west side of the storm as the storm gets better organized that activity is going to begin to wrap around to the South and then again to the east I still think the heaviest rain is going to be on the east side of the storm that doesn't necessarily mean that that there isn't going to be any rain or very little rain on the west side of the storm uh there certainly very well could be let me go ahead and uh and pull our rainfall graphic back up here let's see it is right there I'll make this full screen for you because that's kind of hard to see behind me U so generally speaking so for the lacassine Lake Charles area 4 to 6 inches of rain is what we're forecasting right now along and east of that Center of circulation rainfall totals are going to be significantly higher we're looking at anywhere between uh six to8 Ines possibly up to 12 inches uh in some locations so um you know significant rainfall across a wide swath of uh of Southern Louisiana regardless of whether you're on the west or east side of the storm Kelsey ask if the cone shifts a little bit back to the West would Southeast Texas be back in the cone yes um right now the the leftmost edge of the cone of uncertainty is roughly right along the Texas Louisiana border if we saw a shift track of the track back to the West that would put um Southeast Texas back in that cone Kelly ask is it possible for it to slow down or stall we're not expecting that at this point because again it's going to be like we talked about earlier it's going to be moving into uh a stationary cold front over the northern Gulf Coast that should actually help it accelerate and you can see that in the forecast graphic here you can see how the uh the dots there are initially very close together for the next uh 24 to 36 hours or so and they begin to spread apart a little bit as we get closer to landfall that's an indication that the storm is expected to be accelerating increasing in forward speed we're expecting it to be moving probably about 15 miles an hour or thereabouts as it makes landfall uh Casey just asked that speed at landfall again we're expecting it to be about 15 miles an hour at landfall Lacy says is the Tuesday weather going to ground flights out of Lake Charles probably not Tuesday uh maybe Wednesday especially we get later in the day uh but no I don't expect there to be uh any impacts Tuesday to the Lake Charles airport Heidi says this is our first hurricane experience moved here from the Midwest we are in Lake Charles should we be worried or evacuated or is this mostly strong winds and rain uh based on the current forecast track this is going to be mainly Heavy Rain there is going to be some Gusty winds my advice to anyone who's experiencing hurricane for the first time first off congratulations welcome to the club uh it's the club you never wanted to join and hope to never be a part of but here we are um secondly uh evacuation orders are issued by local emergency management and elected officials and I would strongly advise you to follow those accordingly as of right now I'm not aware of any evacuation orders that are in place anywhere across the region uh but should those be issued and you're in the area that it's issued for then I would strongly consider evacuating at that time Donny ask how often are the projections updated the official forecast from the Hurricane Center is updated four times a day at 4:30 a 10:30 not no at 4:00 am 10: am 4 pm and 10 pm um I was talking about my briefings um so yeah then as the storm gets closer they'll do three-hourly inter immediate advisory so you'll get a a 7 a.m. update uh a 100 p.m update uh same thing on the other side 7: a.m. 7: am. 7 p.m. 1 am 1 pm uh update so potentially every three hours normally it's every six hours for a full update so the next update from the Hurricane Center this afternoon will be at four o'clock Nick ask why does the spaghetti model show at making landfall more West between Lake char and Lafayette and the models show it more East towards Lafayette and Baton Rouge um that's first off this is why we don't show spaghetti models uh but spaghetti models and computer models I think you're you're getting the impression that they're two different things the spaghetti models are computer models they are uh just a conglomeration it's all the different computer models thrown on a single sheet um and that the downside to looking at that is you're going to have different computer models are always going to show something different um so when you're looking at a spaghetti plot you're going to find a storm that's coming directly to Lake Charles you're going to find a a track that's going directly to Lafayette you're GNA find a storm that's going to Baton Rouge you're gonna find one that's going to New Orleans um and that's that's the downside and the the the the problem with looking at spaghetti plots um if you want it to go somewhere you can find something that's going to show it going somewhere so you have to be careful when you're looking at that the majority of computer models right now are showing a landfall approximately in the region that the the Hurricane Center is indicating the Hurricane Center looks at all of these computer models as do we locally um and they use that to make their forecast uh and they incorporate those models along with their own expertise about the current pattern and uh and what they have seen in the past with patterns of this nature and they use that to create this forecast which historically has been accurate than any more accurate than any individual computer model that's why we don't rely on individual computer models Jody ask is there anything else out in the Gulf as we speak besides Francine not in the Gulf um there are a couple of areas of disturbed weather that are being watched out in the Atlantic that have uh pretty decent chances of development but nothing else in the Gulf right now Acy says there was an announcement that there will be an update by 3M I'm guessing you're you're talking about maybe the uh the evacuation and or area closures and a couple other people saying the same thing um so yeah um I haven't independently verified that but it seems to make sense that there would be an announcement uh later on this afternoon okay just running through a whole bunch of people saying that there'll be an announcement this afternoon casha ask what are the chances that it doesn't turn as quickly as y'all have it um you know it's certainly a possibility but that's that's why we have the cone of uncertainty um we're expecting that that turn to the Northeast to begin probably by uh sometime midm morning tomorrow um there's roughly about a 50 mile diameter uh stretch each way uh if it were to be a little bit slower to turn than it's currently being indicated you could be looking at a little bit more of a a Westward push um same thing the other way if it were to turn a little later so it's not on the realm of possibility that that could happen this is uh our best forecast based on the current data that we have Eric says when will Lake Charles return to normal weather with the current forecast well this storm will be out of here by Thursday evening so we'll be back to if you want to call it quote unquote normal weather uh by Thursday night into Friday terl says Donald I'm up in Illinois right now and the air is cool dry and Breezy why wouldn't this air wind air affect the cyclone and break it up because it's up in Illinois and not down here if uh if that air mass was closer to the coast then uh that cool dry air would be ingested Into the Storm and could potentially weaken it but uh your your air is way up there I'd much rather be up there with you right now in that much nicer air it's a really nice out there today but uh we've got a much more tropical air mass approaching us um by tomorrow L ask when will the next track update be the next update from the Hurricane Center comes out at four o'clock Courtney is asking when will evacuations be issued uh evacuations can be issued anytime from now through uh you know the time the storm makes landfall I I can't say with any certainty that's up to uh the local emergency managers and and elected officials to make they are briefed the same as you are they were briefed at uh 10:15 uh this morning about 15 minutes before we came on the air here uh so they have the same information you do and they'll make those decisions uh accordingly based on uh they all each have their individual plans on what to do in certain situations and they'll make uh those evacuations decisions based on those Jennifer says they're tuning in from Sour Lake Elementary students want to know if there is anything that their family should prepare for in Sour Lake Texas uh well the good news is that that the forecast track has been shifting further to the east uh away from the sour Lake Area uh so the impacts uh in terms of rainfall and winds are going to be significantly lower than uh than they might otherwise be so we're going to be looking at just some periods of possible heavy rainfall we're not expecting some really any really strong winds at this point in that area the biggest risk is going to be the potential for heavy rainfall so uh and even that's going to be fairly limited we're going to be looking at probably about two to four inches of rain uh beginning as early as late tomorrow uh and then continuing on and off through the day Wednesday into Wednesday night uh that's going to be the biggest overall issue thankfully for uh for the most part most of Southeast Texas is not going to experience a real life-threatening impacts based on the current forecast track uh apex of the Avatar uh wants to know when the strongest effects will arrive in the Lafayette area we're going to be looking at those tropical storm Forest winds beginning between about 8 a.m. in noon uh and then you you'll probably have some rain before that but that's when the tropical storm force winds are going to begin in then conditions will deteriorate further as we go into the afternoon and evening right now we're looking at a landfall sometime late Wednesday afternoon into Wednesday evening um so your eye or your center of circulation whatever the case may be if it's going to approach Lafayette it's going to be Wednesday night okay let's see I'm up to 11:05 now so I'm only 10 minutes behind everybody trying to catch up Tera ask I've never experienced hurricanes before we moved here from New York do you think this will hit Dar Ritter I think you're GNA have some impacts in Dar Ritter but you're not going to be looking at um your real dramatic impacts at least not based on the current forecast track your biggest concern is going to be the potential for rainfall again you're kind of in that 2 to 4 inch range uh for rainfall that could be enough to cause some Street flooding um you'll probably have a few tropical storm force wind gusts up that way that could result in a few power outages that's not out of the realm of possibility um but overall the impacts uh are going to be less there than they're going to be closer to the Storm Center Mr Rover Kane says please tie down trampolines Barrel sent a neighbors trampolin flying and hit our roof trampolines can fly in 25 30 mph winds it doesn't take a whole lot uh I once heard it described as trampolines are nature's frisbees Bren says the storm that hit Lake Charles a few years ago did a bit of damage in Port NES no power for four days could Port NES experience the same as that storm um this storm at least based on the current forecast track is going to be further east than Lake Charles so your experience will likely be um less dramatic uh less significant than uh than what you saw in that event Elia I don't know if I'm saying that right does AI help predict models um I'm trying to think of exactly how you're trying to ask that question is AI involved in weather prediction uh in the Weather Service not so much yet now there's been there is ongoing experiments about the use of AI in forecasting and in model prediction there are some private entities that have have dabbled in that um I want to say AI weather's probably done some work with that as well um there are AI models out there um they're not currently incorporated into hurricane forecasting through the National Hurricane Center or anything that we do locally they may be at some point in the future should they prove successful um but that's still kind of in the experimental phase at this point killan asked what are the chances of widespread power outages in the sulfur Lake Charles area if the storm does in fact make landfall the Lafayette area not particularly high but we are going to be looking at probably some gust to low end tropical storm Force so if we get some you know some dead tree branches or some some damaged tree branches that fall on a power line we could see a few power outages it's not out of the realm of possibility um but I wouldn't expect widespread power outages if uh if we see a landfall further to the east uh from Lake Charles Mary asked what alcohol do I drink after answering all these questions the good stuff the the good stuff Adventure girl asked could it be a possible category two yes the official forecast is for a category one but we've been saying prepare for a category higher than what's being forecasted so yes a category 2 is not out of the question it could be ready ask is it going to hit the offshore drilling rigs probably some of them um probably a fair amount of them actually um those also have plans for for tropical systems they have organized shut down measures that they can take uh if they are looking at a tropical system moving across they tend to they could probably withstand a tropical storm most of them are built pretty tough out there um but uh you know they do have evacuation plans for personnel and they have plans for shutting those rigs down in the event of uh of them being affected but yeah I imagine that some of them if not a fair amount of them will be all right I think we're gonna go ahead and uh wrap up for the time being if you have a question that I missed for some reason or uh if you're viewing this as a recording and you think of a question while we're not on uh actual live briefing here uh feel free to uh send us a direct message on Facebook you can also email me my email address is on the screen there it's my name with a dot in the middle so donald. Jones Noah noaa.gov you can also give us a call here at our office area code 33747 7528 um and we have forecasters here 24 hours a day seven days a week to answer all your questions that way you can send us a message on X we're on X you can also send us a message on Instagram as we're through Instagram as well so lots of ways to get in touch with us if you do have any questions still that you need answered our next briefing will be 4 pm this afternoon we'll have uh the latest update from the National Hurricane Center at that time um so we'll have the latest with that and the expected impacts across our area if they have changed any between now and then in the meantime everyone have a wonderful rest of your morning we'll see you back here 4 pm this afternoon e