‘Category 2!’ Latest Forecast for Francine Shows a Stronger Storm Hitting Louisiana

LAFAYETTE, La. (KPEL News) - The latest forecast for a strong tropical system moving through the Gulf of Mexico shows that it could make landfall stronger than expected.

The National Hurricane Center is forecasting a potential Category 2 hurricane making landfall around Wednesday morning.

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According to Rob Perillo, Chief Meteorologist with our news partners at KATC, the latest advisory for Francine, the sixth named storm of the season, has it becoming more organized and more powerful by the time it makes landfall in the middle of the week.

"Latest NHC Advisory has Francine coming in as a Category 2," he wrote on his social media pages. "No real change in track but they have advanced the time-line window to landfall for Wednesday afternoon."

Here's more from the National Hurricane Center afternoon forecast.

At 400 PM CDT (2100 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Francine was located near latitude 24.0 North, longitude 96.0 West. Francine is moving toward the north-northwest near 7 mph (11 km/h). A continued north-northwest motion is expected through this evening followed by
a turn to the northeast with some acceleration beginning Tuesday. On the forecast track, Francine is anticipated to be just offshore of the coasts of northeastern Mexico and southern Texas through Tuesday, and nearing the Louisiana and Upper Texas coastline on Wednesday.

Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 65 mph (100 km/h) with higher gusts. Significant strengthening is forecast over the next couple of days, and Francine is expected to become a hurricane tonight or Tuesday morning.

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