Even though Francine’s strength hasn’t picked up, its track has shifted.
The National Hurricane Center’s 10:00 a.m. update shows Francine still packing maximum sustained winds of 65 MPH, which is unchanged from the 7:00 a.m. intermediate update.
But now, the projected landfall location has shifted to the east.
“It’s changed from Vermillion Bay basically over to Morgan City, and then they have it tracking essentially right over Baton Rouge,” says Barry Keim, LSU public health climatologist, “and this is going to affect all of South Louisiana.”
Francine is slated to make landfall tomorrow sometime around the early evening hours.
“The Hurricane Center has this thing making landfall at 97 miles per hour, which would be on the low end of a Category Two hurricane,” says Keim.
And even though the track currently has the storm making landfall in or near Morgan City, that could change between now and tomorrow evening.
“A lot of times, when the model starts shifting a track in subsequent runs, that shifting continues until it locks in on some location,” Keim says.
Another change is in the forecast of the storm surge, which is now forecast to be as high as ten feet, which Keim says is very significant.
“A lot of the roads that are outside of the levee systems are two, three, four, five feet above sea level, and some of those roads could get inundated under these circumstances.”
Many local governments in the coastal parishes are issuing evacuation orders, and state officials are urging people in those areas to heed those warnings.
The current track will take the eye of Francine directly over Baton Rouge and will also put more of the New Orleans metro area, including Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, on the bad side of the storm.
Keim says for those living in Baton Rouge and other areas inland, there’s no reason to panic.
“Once it makes landfall, it’s expected to fall apart pretty quickly, because it’ll be in a fairly hostile environment from that point inland.”
