KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

Flood Watches are in effect for much of Southern Louisiana through Thursday morning including the I-10 and coastal parishes in Acadiana.  Rainfall totals over the next several days will generally be in the 2-3″ range with isolated areas possibly receiving 5″ or more through Thursday. 

KATC’s FutureCast is actually indicating much more rainfall over the next 72 hours across portions of Louisiana with hot spots over Southeast Louisiana and possibly coastal Acadiana exceeding 10″.  What happens in “real-life” and on the computer are almost always two different things but the model is highlighting the potential for heavy rains….hopefully most of this will remain offshore.

Meanwhile Alex continues to churn and slowly intensify in the Southwestern Gulf of Mexico with landfall expected south of the Texas border Wednesday evening/night.  Alex should become a hurricane later tonight as drier more stable air on the northwestern flank of this system has kept the system a tropical storm today.  That drier air appeared to be getting sealed out of the system late this afternoon so the storm is likely very close to a hurricane as of this evening.

Gusty easterly winds offshore the Louisiana coast will likely ramp up Wednesday while swells from the south make for 4-8 foot seas close to home but deep water areas toward the oil spill will likely push into the 8-12 foot range.   Tides along the coast were running 1 foot above normal today and should continue to near 2 feet above normal Wednesday.  A Coastal Flood Advisory continues as of this evening for elevated tides expected through Thursday.

You may have noticed that  haven’t been on air this week and many thanks to KATC I have been attending the American Meteorological Society’s Broadcast conference in beautiful Miami Beach.  This conference combines presentations obviously about weather, but also how to be a better broadcaster and communicator of scientific information including topics outside of the weather realm. 

Roughly 200 attendees had the opportunity to take a course in tropical meteorology which was quite informative and we are looking forward to touring the National Hurricane Center…the mecca for tropical meteorologists! 

In addition, Hurricane Center Director Bill Read will be the keynote speaker at lunch today provided the tropical wave in the Western Caribbean doesn’t develop too quickly… if not we may be seeing him and his team in action at the NHC.   

This morning the subject of climate change has been the focus…always interesting perspectives…with disaster mitigation on the docket through the early afternoon.  Hopefully that will be followed by a little sand and surf later this today. 

Incidentally the talk of the conference amoungst many of us meteorologists has been the oil disaster in the Gulf.  Visually my flight out of  Houston was quite interesting where I did see what I believe were ribbons of oil roughly 20 miles off the Bolivar Peninsula  near Galveston along the upper Texas coast.  Flying over the main spill area south of Venice Monday was also quite interesting with colors more a kin to the dispersant rather than oil.  Again these are more casual observations and the visual inspection offshore the Louisiana Coast was from 30,000ft.  Obviously the big story over the last couple of days has been the thick stuff washing up onto Pensacola Beach…rough to watch. 

The new wild card of late is what Dave and Chris have been watching in the Western Caribbean…this system continues to show slow signs of development with models carrying this “something” into the Central Gulf by early next week…a tropical storm may be quite possible…never dull in our world.  Stay with KATC for the latest on the system as Hurricane Hunters should be on their way to investigate later today.  I will see you Monday!

Acadiana is our home so when close to 2,000 square miles of land disappear a natural disaster becomes a national crisis.   Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act a Federal protection plan would be able to work directly with those charged with cleaning and restoring the coast because of the oil spill.  So I am going to say it, and maybe you thought the same.  Why is that every time a disaster effects our coast either man made or natural the entire Nation and even the world notice after the fact?  Lets take part of that delayed reaction as a compliment and an example of how important Louisiana is to the world, and not just economically. The other  excuse ,”out of site…out of mind”.   We are stuck between two extremes, the collapse and preservation.  The middle, lies a natural wonder that supports almost one-fourth of the domestic oil and gas production, and the largest seafood harvest in the lower 48 states.   The Natural Gas resources have only just begun to be researched and geologist say the supply is one of the largest in the world.  Wetlands protect the  shipping and fuel production corridors in the U.S. from hurricanes  and open gulf conditions one of those ports receives over a million barrels of oil every day, that’s more than 13% of  our foreign oil supply.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita really showed America how dependent they were to Louisiana.  I know first hand the panic Southeastern States were under when even a mention of gas not being available.  Prices were over $6 a gallon at the pump and the lines were down the road.  This was said to have cost Americans $1 BILLION dollars a day.  That crisis lasted only days as gas become undeliverable to major cities immediately following the storms.  More than likely most people you ask that live outside this area don’t even remember those days, I will give some credit, maybe they would recall if mentioned.  We are the ones that stay to repair….work….succeed….live….learn….play….love….and die here.              The resources are present and available and the technology to harvest improves everyday.  To just stop drilling would be to choke us.  I am going to put myself out there and say this.  Yes, we need to make improvements and learn more about drilling a mile below the Gulf surface.  Today the worlds deep water  remains an unknown and  unexplored part of the world that we know very little about.  But we must move ahead and learn from the tragedy.  Action + Progress = Success to us all.   Don Briggs, L.O.G.A.  President, said it best…”think about this after Katrina and Rita there were several rigs that were damaged some destroyed the amount of spilled oil was minimal”, he reminds me that he does not want to speculate on  what happened but said “this was a devastating failure and we lost 11 people”.  Those men gave it all.

The value we have here in Acadiana also lives in the estuaries,  the unique mixture of salt and fresh water are the nursery for shrimp, crabs, and several fish species.  The dockside harvest value averages $310 million, and the recreational boating and fishing is a billion dollar industry.   We came here and they laughed…we settled here and they said it could not be done.  We found success here and now they want to take it away.   My experience tells me it’s in the best interest now for oil companies to be safe, responsible and profitable.  Not careless.  The businesses  in Acadiana that are strong and working are the ones that operate honestly and safely.  It just does not fly any other way here.

A cultural heritage made famous with Mardi Gras is rooted much deeper than just parties and parades.  It is a heritage of family and friends, hunting and fishing, cooking and community.  Yes also we must give thanks to the prosperity that comes from living near the rich marshes, estuaries and fossil fuel mines below.   I have always been  proud of the independence Louisiana has when faced with a disaster…..we take care of our own.  Would you say $14 billion was high price to protect the coast, but think about if nothing was done the cost is estimated to be $100 billion.  Our nation can not afford to lose this critical infrastructure for energy production, commercial shipping, oil and gas distribution, and seafood harvests.  Yes we can have it all…a pristine and vital coast that produces, protects and brings us all glory.

C.W.P.P.R.A

* Attend public meetings

*  Subscribe to Water Marks

*  Study coastal wetland loss and restoration issues

*  Volunteer

More information:  www.LaCoast.gov  (337) 266 8623

So TruVu Max is up and running and we are pleased with where we stand. Together with the most experienced weather team, this new weather system is the best of the best and will serve to protect and inform Acadiana.  Obviously the crude disaster has kept us in an elevated state of weather and news coverage and the approaching “busy” hurricane season has us preparing for the active months ahead.

By adding this  major software and hardware upgrades to our weather facilities as well we stand stronger and well prepared. This is also in addition to recent processor upgrade to Power Doppler 3000 (which gives us the highest definition radar in all of Southern Louisiana) we have unveiled the KATC Interactive Stormtracker.   The interactive tracker takes National Weather Service Doppler radar imagery and allows the user zoom down to neighborhood level and gives full control to the user to watch weather in Acadiana or anywhere in the U.S.  In addition, other tools such as user controlled animation, satellite imagery, land and water temperature contours and lightning data, there are exclusive tools for tracking severe storms, including the same TITAN storm tracking capabilities that we use here at KATC.  And if that isn’t enough, there is an integrated hurricane tracking program included and the utility even has overlays for tracking the oil spill in the Gulf.   Check it out and give it a spin!

Finally Dave, Chris and I are now working weather with products with the latest “state of the art” platform of TV weather graphics.  This system is definitely the “next” level platform that will bring high definition satellite, radar imagery, and graphics to Acadiana.  The “TruView Max” system (from WSI, the leading commercial weather graphics and data company) features a continuous live weather engine that ingests the latest satellite-delivered weather and computer forecast data with no rendering time.  The weather imagery and graphics to be simply put, are awesome!

Let us know how you feel…