The National Hurricane Center is now tracking and issuing advisories on the area of disturbed weather in the southwest Gulf of Mexico. For the time being, she will be referred to as PTC 3. That will likely change late tonight or tomorrow and her name will become Claudette with upgraded status to Tropical Storm.
Heavy rain squalls along with thunderstorms and water spouts will be possible along the Mississippi, Alabama, and NW Florida coast beginning tomorrow and continuing through Sunday afternoon.
Landfall is expected along the Louisiana coast early Saturday morning with a turn to the northeast across southeast Mississippi, central Alabama, and north Georgia by Sunday afternoon.
Friday’s weather will be fantastic, just as today. Things will start to change Saturday across east Alabama and west Georgia. I expect Saturday morning to be partly to mostly cloudy but dry. Rain bands with occasional thunderstorms will begin shortly after noon and continue through Tuesday. That’s correct, I said Tuesday. PTC 3 will be long gone by Sunday evening but in her wake will be an advancing cold front from the northwest which will interact with leftover tropical moisture and provide more rain. I think this is most certainly a 3″+ event for east Alabama and up to 6″ totals are possible by Tuesday.
The main threat from these two systems will be heavy rain and flooding. We could see a few thunderstorms and you can never completely rule out a small spin up tornado but flooding will be the issue here!
NOAA already has east Alabama and west Georgia in a slight risk area of Excessive Rainfall and we are still 48+ hours from the onstart. That risk level will likley go up.
Play close attention to the latest weather information tomorrow and throughout the weekend. Again, your not going to get high winds and most likely no tornados from this storm. However, flooding is a killer and there is a good chance we will deal with flooding this weekend.
If the latest forecast continues to hold, I will go live tomorrow night with a Tropical Update on Dr. Don’s Weather.
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