Nicholas Struggling To Find A Center Making Forecasts Difficult...

Tropical Storm Nicholas has a large cloud signature on satellite views, but he doesn't have the classic rotation around a well defined center.  In fact, it appears he has multiple centers with the newest one forming to the NE of the latest location.

If the northern L is the new center, that would mean Nicholas is moving faster and NHC now says motion is northward at 12 mph.  He is an "east side loaded" storm with very little rain to the west.  Radars are seeing most of the action remains offshore.

Due to the increase forward motion, NHC has lowered the total rainfall forecast as they don't expect Nicholas to stall like Harvey did back in 2017.

What you can see is they have shifted the 4-6" area farther to the east over most of SE LA.  That is over three days and it's not what we need with all the repair work going on.  Here's the newest track from NHC.

Looks similar to last night's with all of south Louisiana staying on the wet side.

The center line track shifted back to west of Houston at 4 AM, but it's shifted back to the east with the latest advisory.   Since Nicholas does not have a well defined center, trying to track that center line is pretty useless.  Look at what Zack Fradella just showed on FOX 8.

So before you dump on the forecasters, you must understand the uncertainties of Mother Nature.   In the words of Tim Floyd..."never ignore the obvious".   What appears easy often is not when a storm is not behaving according to the models.   What we do know is Nicholas will be a heavy rain maker for us, but not today.  The strongest winds will be along the upper Texas coast.

Don't be surprised to see Nicholas briefly reach hurricane force before landfall.  What I'm hoping continues is the faster forward motion as that will limit how much rain we get Tuesday thru Thursday.  I'll post again after 4 PM.  Stay tuned!