Stormy Weekend?

Tonight's VIPIR model run once again forms a weak low (tropical storm?) over the western Gulf late Friday and brings it to the Louisiana coast early on Sunday. With such fast upper winds, I find that hard to buy into, however, this model was correct with Claudette and I don't like seeing the consistency day to day. Regardless, it appear we're in for several inches (3-5+) of rainfall during the next 48-72 hours. I'll give it another look tomorrow.

On this anniversary of Betsy (1965) we have Hurricane Fred way out in the Atlantic, a threat only to shipping. Fred briefly reached 120 mph (Cat. 3) this morning, but he's weakened down to 105 mph (Cat. 2) tonight. As I've mentioned several times before, I believe IF we are to get a tropical threat this year, it will come from the Gulf NOT the Atlantic.

In the short term, more storms will form during daytime heating on Thursday. Since the upper flow is very limited, these slow moving storms could dump 2-3 inches in less than an hour causing minor street flooding in some neighborhoods. Let's pay a little more attention to our weather for the next several days.