Rain, tornadoes, and storm surge have already plagued areas from the Alabama Gulf Coast to southeast Louisiana. More wave action to come with our in house computers indicating waves over 30 feet high just off the southeast Louisiana coastline....yikes! Additionally, rain from this storm has been spreading all across the southeast, not just along the Gulf Coast.
Note the band of intense precipitation along I-95 in Florida. That has been sitting over the same location for a couple of days now. Nearly 10 inches of rain has fell near West Palm Beach, with several isolated location near 15 inches. Furthermore, notice how the east side of the storm on radar has a majority of the precipitation. Typically, the northwest quadrant of a tropical cyclone have the most punch. Nonetheless, Isaac remains a slow moving storm any many bands of tropical downpours will swirl in over Mississippi and Louisiana over the next 48 hours.
Question is.....where will Isaac head next?
The above image is the official forecast path from the National Hurricane Center. Glancing at the time stamp on the left side of the cone, clearly this will be a prolonged event. You can also glean that the center of the storm will move up into central Louisiana and eventually towards Arkansas.
Personally, I am not 100% convinced that this will be the exact motion of Isaac. From the latest computer information, I think that the center of Isaac will shift farther west, closer to the Brazos Valley.
Looking at the upper level features, high pressure situated over the Rockies/Plains will take over as the steering current for this storm and help it move farther west than what the Hurricane Center is predicting.
High pressure is known to block large scale storms. But a slight weakness in this ridge will help to pick up Isaac and move the whole storm closer to Texas. If this all happens, we will see a good shot of rain Thursday, and increased winds. Impact in the Brazos Valley will be minimal compared to the destruction happening to our east. All we should see is just a heavy rain at times Thursday and gusty winds, nothing severe.
Now, lets take a look at the progression with the RPM model which does a fairly good job.
By 5:00PM Wednesday, yes....Isaac is still over central Louisiana. I was not kidding that this was a slow moving storm. From here, the ridge to our northwest will continue to draw this storm farther west with a motion to the north.
If this model is correct, Isaac will be centered in northeast Texas, with Shreveport on the east side. Again, if this is correct, we will see rain here, but more severe weather to our east. Due to this the game vs. LA Tech has been postponed to October 13th. Reason is, the east side of the storm has the most intense winds, heaviest rain, plus the threat for tornadoes.
With all of this in play, the NHC has issued a Tropical Storm Watch for portions of the upper Texas Coastline.
A Tropical Storm Watch means that there is the potential for the highlighted area in yellow to experience sustained winds greater than 39mph. Storm surge should not be a problem over the upper Texas Coast, but rain could cause some inland flooding.
Overall, this is a situation that will be monitored closely and I will keep you up to date with the latest.
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