WeatherFanatics: Tropical Storm Karen to Strike Upper Gulf Coast

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Tropical Storm Karen to Strike Upper Gulf Coast

By Michael Doll, Meteorologist

October 3,2013; 7:33PM,EDT

Tropical Storm Karen has formed in the Gulf of Mexico and will move into the southern United States this weekend with heavy rain, gusty winds and rough seas.
Karen will continue to move along a curved northward path over the central Gulf of Mexico through Friday. During Saturday, Karen will begin to turn toward the northeast and will make landfall along the upper Gulf Coast from southeast of New Orleans to west of Panama City, Fla.
There is a chance Karen becomes a hurricane prior to making landfall. Shortly after being officially named a tropical storm, Karen's maximum sustained winds had reached 65 mph. The threshold for a tropical system to become a hurricane is sustained winds of 74 mph.
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Near and just east of where Karen makes landfall, minor coastal flooding is possible. Wind gusts in the neighborhood of 60 mph can cause minor property damage, downed trees and power outages.

Showers and thunderstorms will become more frequent from the Florida Panhandle to southeastern Louisiana Saturday.
As Karen strengthens, seas will gradually build over the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico.
As seas build, the frequency and strength of rip currents will increase along with the possibility of beach erosion.
Rainfall can be heavy enough to alleviate recent dry conditions in some locations of the South. However, the rain may raise the risk of flooding for parts of the region, not only near the Gulf Coast, but also inland as the storm moves northeastward over the interior South.
A pocket of 3- to 6-inch rainfall can occur close to the center of the storm track, inland as far as the southern Appalachians and Piedmont.

Sometimes as tropical systems make landfall, tornadoes can be produced.
According to Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski, "Tornadoes are a possibility, north and east of the landfall Saturday into Sunday morning, focusing on the Florida Panhandle, but perhaps a far west as southern Alabama and southeastern Mississippi."
Showers and thunderstorms with this system have been brewing across the southern and central Caribbean since last week.
Through Wednesday of this week, disruptive winds had been an inhibiting factor in development.
This weekend over the mainland United States, a strong cold front will first move across the Mississippi Valley.

This will help pull the moisture from this Gulf of Mexico system northward and enhance rainfall from the Gulf coast to part of the interior South.
The aforementioned cold front will eventually bring showers and some thunderstorms to the mid-Atlantic and Northeast late on Sunday into Monday.
There is a chance that moisture from Karen enhances the rainfall across parts of the mid-Atlantic and and perhaps New England early next week, where the rain is most needed and the weather of late has been more like summer, rather than autumn.
Content contributed by Alex Sosnowski, expert senior meteorologist.