New Orleans Next On Hurricane Hit List?

There's good agreement among computer forecasting
models that Nate will come ashore over or near
southeastern Louisiana, but the wild card is
how strong it will be when it gets there. 

The next American city to get slammed in this terrible hurricane season of 2017 might be New Orleans.

Hurricane watches are now up for this weekend along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, including the city of New Orleans as Tropical Storm Nate gets its act together in the western Caribbean Sea today.

It's inevitable that Nate will hit the United States somewhere along the Gulf Coast over the weekend, but there are big questions on the exact path and especially the strength of Nate once it reaches the U.S.

Maximum sustained winds with Nate were 45 mph early this morning, which isn't too intense, but the storm should strengthen fairly rapidly over very warm waters north of Nicaragua today.

Nate will head north, and how the storm interacts with land when it passes over or near Mexico's Yucatan peninsula tonight will greatly determine how fierce a storm Nate will be once it reaches the United States.

If the land interaction seriously disrupts Nate's core, it won't have time to get its act together and, in a best case scenario, not even get to full hurricane strength.  However, if Nate stays organized, or somehow misses the Yucatan altogether, it could strengthen rapidly into a dangerous powerhouse.

Hurricane forecasters are generally better at predicted a hurricane's path than they are at pinpointing its future strength. That's the nature of the science.

Right now, the National Hurricane Center is going with a middle of the road approach, and predicts a Category 1 Nate with 80 mph winds when it comes ashore.

After dealing with Category 4 and 5 hurricanes this year, Category 1 doesn't seem so bad, yet it is. Up to a foot of rain might fall along the Gulf Coast in the path of Nate, and storm surges will very likely batter the coastline.

The New Orleans water pumping system, which pushes water out of the low lying city during storms, is still not fully functional after a very damaging August 5 flood there. So more flooding is very possible.

One hopeful piece of news is that Nate will be moving right along, so it won't rain heavily in New Orleans or elsewhere for a long time. It won't be like Hurricane Harvey, which pretty much stalled out over East Texas for days, which, as we all remember, caused immense floods.

After A Brief Break, Another Hurricane Threat For The United States

Just some of the computer models for the future
track of what could well become Hurricane Nate.
As you can see by the variety of potential paths,
the forecast for Nate is still uncertain, but it
really does pose a threat to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

For a few blissful days, there hasn't been much in the way of hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean, and, thankfully, nothing to speak of near the United States except for a weak tropical disturbance near Florida.

Unfortunately, that started to change yesterday as a tropical depression formed near Nicaragua. That depression this morning strengthened to Tropical Storm Nate, which has a strong chance of becoming a hurricane.

Nate will likely cause big problems in Nicaragua and Honduras, Mexico, probably Cuba and, yes, the United States.

The tropical depression was having a hard time strengthening into Tropical Storm Nate early this morning because it was interacting with land over Nicaragua and Honduras. (Tropical storms and hurricanes only strengthen over warm water.)

Still, the storm is likely to cause dangerous flooding in those two countries today.

From there, Nate will head north and emerge over the toasty waters of the western Caribbean Sea, where it will likely strengthen. Before it gets too strong, the storm will likely clip Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

It's unclear whether what is now Nate will be a strong tropical storm or a hurricane by the time it gets to the Yucatan Peninsula sometime Friday night or early Saturday morning, but it will cause wind, flooding rain and possible storm surge problems there.

From there, Nate will move northward over the Gulf of Mexico toward the United States. The water in the Gulf of Mexico is very warm, which tropical systems love if they want to strengthen.

The big question is how much will this would-be hurricane strengthen before its inevitable landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Some models barely bring this to hurricane strength, it at all. Other computer forecast models dramatically strengthen Nate over the Gulf of Mexico, which would make it a terrible threat to parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast by late Sunday or early Monday.

This far out, its exact track is also uncertain, but a zone from Louisiana through most of the Florida Panhandle are at risk. Wouldn't you know this is an area that is relatively unscathed between the flood devastation from Hurricane Harvey in Texas and southwestern Louisiana, and the Florida Peninsula, which was raked by Hurricane Irma last month.

So, once again, the United States is bracing for a possible disastrous hurricane.

Up here where we live in Vermont, it's possible the remnants of Nate could affect us next week. On the plus side, if it does, it would dump a big slug of rain on us, which we need. (The relatively modest rains that fell over northern Vermont last night helped a little,  but we need a lot more to get over our current dry spell.)

On the negative side, a gusty, heavy rain from a former tropical storm could short circuit some of the fall foliage, which is finally beginning to develop over the North Country - much later than normal due to the record September heat we had.

I can't give you any specifics, since the track of Nate is so uncertain.