At 11am NHC decided PTC Six was tropical enough, and bestowed the next name on the list (Francine) – Key Messages regarding Tropical Storm Francine (en Español: Mensajes Claves). Francine is expected to quickly intensify into a hurricane over the next day, and make landfall on the northern Gulf coast on Wednesday evening. Hurricane watches are now up for the Louisiana coast, and a tropical storm watch is also up for New Orleans …
The current forecast keeps Francine as a minimal hurricane, so damage and other impacts should be at the low end of the scale as far as hurricanes go. Still, if you are in the watch and soon to be warning areas, listen to emergency manager guidance and prepare for hurricane conditions.
With any landfall in the Gulf the question becomes the potential impact on oil and gas production. It’s important to realize a couple of things. First, offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico is much less important today than it was 20 years ago when hurricanes like Ivan, Katrina, and Wilma ripped through the Gulf. Once over 30% of US oil production. it is now under 15% (and only 5% of natural gas). Second, most of the older, weaker infrastructure was damaged and either scrapped or upgraded after those intense storms, and standards raised for all the stuff build since. That means the offshore infrastructure is less vulnerable. So the biggest problem are ports (for import/export), and most critically the refineries.
At the moment, neither looks to be at risk of serious damage (with the usual caveats of “if nothing breaks that shouldn’t” and “if the forecast doesn’t change”).
The storm should be moving along well enough so that rain wouldn’t ordinarily be a huge threat, however, the Gulf coast has seen a lot of rain the last month or so and things are pretty saturated. NHC advisories have the usual “urban and flash flooding” guidance.
So in summary, Francine looks right now like a fairly typical hurricane: dangerous right around landfall, but not catastrophic, and shouldn’t cause any loss of life if everyone pays attention. Economic impacts should be in the $1 to $2 Billion range as long as nothing breaks that shouldn’t.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic, there an invest area and a disturbance NHC has on their blob of doom map. The invest is hovering around 60% chance of formation, while the tropical wave behind it is now a red blob at 70%. Both should turn northward before annoying the Caribbean. Nicholas is unimpressed.
If you like this kind of commentary you can subscribe to the emails (and/or donate to keep it going) at this link. You can also follow us on X/Twitter (@EnkiResearch) or even Facebook if that’s your preferred social media cesspool.
Thank you for taking time to update us, and to include the wise opinion of Nicholas.