A tropical disturbance in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico was shaping up as what could become the season’s next hurricane, the National Hurricane Center said early Monday. It would be called Francine and end a brief hiatus that hurricane-prone regions enjoyed.
The hurricane center said the system is expected to become a tropical storm on Monday and a hurricane before making landfall, likely over the northwestern U.S. Gulf Coast on Wednesday, bringing an “increased risk of life-threatening storm surge and hurricane-force winds along the Louisiana and upper Texas coasts.” “
NOAA/National Hurricane Center
The system was expected to dump 4-8 inches of rain in many areas and up to a foot in some places, forecasters said.
Tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 185 miles from the system’s center early Monday.
That center was about 295 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Rio Grande and about 535 miles south of Cameron, Louisiana. It was crawling north-northwest at 5 mph.
The disturbance had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, well above the 39 mph needed to officially be named a tropical storm, but, explains CBS senior weather and climate producer David Parkinson, its center was not yet clearly defined enough to earn that classification .
A Tropical Storm Watch was in effect for Barra del Tordo, Mexico to the mouth of the Rio Grande and from there to Port Mansfield, Texas.
The disruption follows an unusually quiet August and early September in the Atlantic hurricane season, which has seen five named storms.
Experts had predicted one of the busiest Atlantic seasons on record and, The Associated Press notes, Colorado State University researchers said last week they still expect an above-normal season overall.