Based on projections from the National Hurricane Center, a hurricane could make landfall in southwest Louisiana during the middle of this week. Meteorologist Joe Rua with the National Weather Service in Lake Charles says an area of low pressure in the Bay of Campeche in the southern Gulf of Mexico is expected to organize into hurricane.
“Right now, conditions do vary in strengthening, and quite possibly up to a Category 1 hurricane as it makes landfall somewhere along the upper Texas through the southern Louisiana coast, Rua said.
The National Hurricane Center put out its first official forecast track on Sunday afternoon before the system even became a tropical depression. Rua says with an anticipated landfall in southeast Texas or southwest Louisiana on Wednesday, forecasters wanted to let the public know.
“Even though it’s not quite fully developed yet, it looks pretty good at the moment. It looks like everything tells us that it’s going to continue to develop and strengthen,” Rua explained.
Rua says there’s enough time and the sea surface temperatures are warm enough for this disturbance to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane.
“As we always say, intensity forecasting is still a little bit of a trouble, so we always like to tell people to try to prepare for even a Category 1 higher than what we’re talking about,” Rua said.
