Marco Fades, Laura Perseveres
Marco is no longer a Hurricane, and is fading fast. As we talked about last night on our Facebook Live Prep Talk in the Big Bad Storm Blog, the upper level low pressure center of Marco is being ripped away from the lower level center of rotation. As a result, Marco is losing its intensity pretty quickly. The NHC forecast above has Marco as a Tropical Depression all the way into East Texas, and almost getting to Waco. No way. I’d be surprised if we could even label Marco as a Remnant low as far west as Jasper.
Laura is a different story. She’s been able to maintain Tropical Storm strength even though she’s been battling along the southern coast of Cuba. After she makes it into the Gulf of Mexico tonight, she’ll be able to seek out warm waters that have been undisturbed by Marco, and that will allow her to strengthen into a hurricane. Laura is going to become stronger than Marco was at his peak. She at least gets to Cat 2, and could even reach Cat 3 before landfall.
So, where is Laura going to land, when is she going to land, and how strong will she be when she gets there? The image above is from the College of DuPage’s weather site. It’s the NAM (North American Model) for around midnight Wednesday. So, according to this, landfall would be in the very early morning hours on Thursday. The exact location looks to be a little east of what the models were showing yesterday, but it’s still well within the window we’ve outlined for you. Landfall will be overnight Wednesday night into Thursday morning between Houston and New Orleans.
As for strength, it still looks like this is going to be a strong storm. Laura is no Marco. She’s going to hold together and will have winds at least 90mph when she makes landfall. Frankly, she could have winds over 110mph. Laura will also spin up tornadoes in her outer rain bands and will create a storm surge into the Louisiana coast.
After making landfall, Laura will start to lose her power pretty quickly. It’s likely she’s a tropical storm or weaker before she makes the Arkansas border late Thursday, and is a remnant low on Friday as she gets swept up into a passing long wave trough.