A tropical storm warning was posted for the U.S. coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle on Thursday as a weather system in the Gulf of Mexico strengthened in the afternoon and marched north, according to the National Hurricane Center.
By early Friday, the system was expected to become a tropical depression, with the forecast having it intensifying into Tropical Storm Claudette later in the day.
Forecasters expect the storm to make landfall in the early morning hours of Saturday and produce heavy rain and strong winds along a wide area of the coast.
The tropical storm warning is in effect from Intracoastal City, La., to the Alabama-Florida border, including Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas and metropolitan New Orleans.
At 11 p.m. Thursday, the hurricane center said the system had maximum sustained winds of 30 mph and was located 435 miles south of Morgan City, La., and was moving north at 9 mph.
The depression is expected to develop over the west-central Gulf late Thursday or early Friday from a large trough of low pressure moving north toward the U.S.
According to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center, the system will approach the north-central Gulf Coast late Friday or early Saturday and will likely move northeast across the southern United States after it reaches land.
There is still potential for the depression to strengthen into Tropical Storm Claudette this weekend, according to AccuWeather.
“Wind shear is likely to be a constant negative impact on development as the system tries to move northward,” said AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski.
The heaviest rainfall, possibly as much as 12 inches, is expected in southern and eastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, southwestern Alabama and the western part of the Florida Panhandle. Rainfall of 2-8 inches is expected from the Texas-Louisiana border to the eastern Florida Panhandle, forecasters said.
The rainfall has the potential to cause flash, urban and small stream flooding. Storm surges could cause usually dry areas on the coast to flood, the National Hurricane Center said. If peak surges occur at high tide, the Florida Panhandle could see as much as much as 3 feet of water.
AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Rob Miller said landfall could happen late Friday or Saturday anywhere from the Texas-Louisiana border to the western part of the Florida Panhandle, but odds are it will come ashore in coastal Louisiana.
“The storm, regardless of strength, has the potential to deliver rainfall rates of 1-2 inches per hour over a several-hour period,” Miller said.
The system has a 90% chance of formation in the next two days, according to the 2 p.m. advisory from the hurricane center.
After Claudette, the next named storm to form would be Danny.
