Tracking Tropical Storm Francine

Some rain making its way a little bit to our area. Yeah, we've got a little bit of light rain on our coastline this morning. Some actually fell on my windshield as I was driving on. Uh but overall not a whole lot of rain, coastal flooding something we're keeping a very close eye on North Beach. Current level is at 1.56 ft. So minor flooding occurs when the water level reaches 2 ft above normal tides. High tide is expected at 620 5 a.m. So about an hour from now, tide prediction has it nearing 2 ft by then. Uh with the help of some of that push associated with Francine. So right now, here's a look at our current swells. We've got 9 ft waves out in the Gulf of Mexico there, 8 ft waves on the southern side of the storm. This is tropical storm Francine with 65 mile per hour winds. It is still moving north northwest at this point but a turn to the northeast is still anticipated. We've got northerly winds right now out of Port Aransas. So you'll see that here with our, our wave height forecasts still going to see some really rough seas throughout the day today. So down shore wind really strong. What that does is it creates this alongshore current that'll push you really far down the coastline. On top of that, we have rip currents. So lots of crazy current action acting in the Gulf of Mexico creating very hazardous surf conditions out there. Not advice to get in the water today and tomorrow, we're still dealing with some higher wave action tomorrow, but we will have an offshore wind there. Northwest lighter winds as well could create some really nice surf action. Uh but still be warned, some of those currents will still be out there, especially a strong current with those wave heights 4 to 6 ft, possibly up to 7 ft and the period still around nine seconds or so category hurricane is expected with landfall toward Louisiana. You can see those wave heights getting really strong there. Uh For Louisiana, we're talking the red levels, which is 20 to 25 ft waves that will lead to some dangerous storm surge and swell associated with Francine on that right front quadrant of the storm for us. We're on the backside. So we're not gonna see nearly as high of an impact and wave action really starts to flatten out. It looks like as we head into Thursday right now, coastal flood warning is in place for all of our coastal locations. We also have a tropical storm warning for our water. So our gulf water waves are under that tropical storm warning that's due at least Friday that will likely be expired earlier as we saw with the wave heights lowering quite a bit by Thursday. Here's a look at the current radar. We do have some rain showing up near Port Aransas Rockport. Somewhere in between there, rains is past, likely getting on some of that rain, just some light rain for the most part right now, there is a chance to get some water spouts with some of these storms offshore, but I'm not anticipating much in the way of tornadoes closer to land. But we are seeing the outer bands essentially interacting with the stationary boundary that front that moved through over the weekend that dried our conditions out. That's still having a play a role in Francine as well. So here's a look at the latest 65 mile per hour winds gusts are at hurricane strength, 75 MPH, moving north northwest at five MPH, but expected to turn to the northeast. Category one later on today. Category, uh two by Wednesday afternoon with landfall Wednesday afternoon. So here's what I'm talking about. One of the reasons why we're pretty confident in a, in a shift is we've got the stationary boundary. We also have some steering winds that are coming out of the south and southwest. That's going to happen with this pressure trough moving across Texas. That's one of the things that's going to push Francine closer to Louisiana is the low pressure trough. On top of that, the high pressure that's setting up over Florida or just into the uh western Gulf or eastern Gulf of Mexico there, that trough kind of merges with that stationary boundary, creating a warm front, uh lifting up the warm tropical moisture into portions of the Midwest big tornado threat as it makes its way up. The Mississippi River Valley and the Ohio River Valley Francine cone movement hasn't moved much. Lots of confidence in that Louisiana landfall more kind of on the central Louisiana coastline with several of the last uh outputs from the forecasts cone keeping the center right in that same spot for the most part, confidence continues to go up on that. As far as the rainfall goes, the further east of that track stays away from us, the less rain we are going to see on our Texas coastline, just some spotty showers here or there from those outer bands. All of the heavy rain, the flooding risk that's going to be closer to New Orleans as the storm does make it to the north and then it will follow the Mississippi River Valley north. For the most part in your seven day forecast, we still have your weather impact alert for today and tomorrow, mostly for our coastal waters, marine activity, fishing, playing at the beach surfing all going to be dangerous with the higher act activity in the Gulf of Mexico, both Tuesday and Wednesday. Rip currents will be dangerous. But.