Atlantic hurricane calm comes to an end as developing Hurricane Francine heads toward Louisiana

Atlantic hurricane calm comes to an end as developing Hurricane Francine heads toward Louisiana

Andrea Thompson

Weeks of eerie calm in the Atlantic basin have come to an end as Tropical Storm Francine is expected to form in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday morning and hit Louisiana on Wednesday evening, with forecasters warning of life-threatening storm surges and up to a foot of rain in some places.

Francine is the first storm to form in the Atlantic since Ernesto dissipated on August 21. The storm comes at the start of what is usually the peak of hurricane season activity in the region. Forecasters aren’t sure what’s suppressing hurricane formation, especially considering that the waters that fuel them are unusually warm. It could be a combination of Saharan dust blowing in from off the west coast of Africa, making the atmosphere too dry for moisture-loving tropical systems, and shifting winds over the continent that are reducing the atmospheric disturbances that hurricanes need to develop.

Whatever the cause of the calm, it’s over for now: Francine was still strengthening Monday afternoon, but forecasters expected the storm to strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane late Tuesday, then become a Category 2 on Wednesday as it moves through very warm waters and makes landfall somewhere along the Louisiana coast.

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The National Hurricane Center forecasts that a storm could intensify rapidly if its sustained wind speeds increase by at least 35 mph within 24 hours. Hurricane Beryl, which became the fastest Category 5 storm on record in the Atlantic Basin earlier this season, saw its wind speeds increase by 63 mph in a single day.

“It doesn’t take that long,” said Sean O’Neill, a meteorologist at the NWS office in New Orleans, “which is one of the reasons we always encourage people to prepare for a higher category than what’s forecast.”

Several studies have found that as the climate warms due to burning fossil fuels, more storms will occur and intensify faster.

The current forecast track has the center of the storm making landfall along the central Louisiana coast, but there is still a lot of uncertainty, and the storm could verge eastward or westward depending on how it interacts with the ridge of high pressure in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the cold front in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

The worst storm surge and rain is expected on the eastern side of the storm, where tornadoes are also possible. The highest storm surge is expected to be 5 to 10 feet from Cameron, Louisiana to Port Fourchon, Louisiana. Rainfall amounts of 4 to 8 inches are expected, with some places reaching a foot. Flooding is quite likely from both the rain and storm surge, as the ground is already soaked from recent rains.

O’Neill said because the storm is approaching from the southwest, winds won’t be as helpful in funneling the storm surge into canals and then north toward New Orleans, as happened there during devastating Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

The central Louisiana coast is currently expected to take a direct hit from Francine, and many of those areas are still recovering from past storms, especially Hurricanes Laura and Ida, which struck in 2020 and 2021, respectively. The former knocked out power for weeks, caused billions of dollars in damage, and killed more than 40 people across the affected states; Ida killed more than 90 people and cut off power and water. It is very hard for communities to absorb the blow of a new disaster when they are still trying to recover from past disasters, according to a report released earlier this year by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. And the odds of repeat or compound disasters are increasing as climate change makes heavy rains, heat waves, and droughts more common and intense.

“2020 and 2021 have been devastating years for the Gulf Coast,” Lauren Alexander Augustine, executive director of the National Academy of Sciences’ Gulf Coast Research Program, which funded the study, said in a statement when the report was released. “Our best science tells us that it was probably no coincidence. We must use the lessons and experiences from these years to ensure we are poised to build on a solid foundation worthy of the new normal of disasters that the 21st century will bring.”