Francine will make landfall in Louisiana tomorrow. Is anything coming behind it?

In brief: This is a short post to wrap up our coverage of Tropical Storm Francine, which as expected is having a negligible effect on Texas as it remains well offshore. We also take a look ahead at potential tropical activity over the next 10 days or so.

Francine forecast

As of late this afternoon, Tropical Storm Francine is located due east of the mouth of the Rio Grande River, about 135 miles off the coast. This is about as close as the storm is going to get to Texas as it has assumed a northeastward movement that will take it toward the Louisiana coast. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center expect the storm to reach the south-central coast of Louisiana by Wednesday afternoon as a Category 1 hurricane.

We have been, and will continue to cover the implications of Francine for Louisiana on our sister hurricane website, The Eyewall.

Houston-area impacts

Not much. We’ve seen some sporadic showers today, and that will continue tonight and into Wednesday morning. Inland winds will not be far above normal levels, and even along the coast I don’t expect gusts to exceed 35 or 40 mph, which is not something to be overly concerned about. Tides will run 1 to 3 feet higher than normal tonight and Wednesday morning.

All of this, to the extent that there is anything, will be gone by Wednesday afternoon. The main impact from Francine for Houston is lower temperatures, with highs in the mid-80s today and Wednesday. We’ll be back in the low- to mid-90s soon, so enjoy this.

What’s next in the tropics?

In short, not much we need to worry about. The National Hurricane Center is tracking a couple of areas of low pressure in the Central Atlantic Ocean. However, none of the reliable models bring either of these systems, if they develop at all, toward the Gulf of Mexico. Beyond that, the Gulf of Mexico looks pretty quiet for the next ten days. We’re getting closer to the end of the tropics season for Texas, which is great. But we’re not there yet.