00:00We may have our first Atlantic hurricane of the season later this week.
00:03Yeah, here's our exclusive iPath showing that we do think this gets to Category 1 status by Friday.
00:09But by the time it makes landfall, we think it's a strong tropical storm.
00:13Yeah, there's some strong wind shear on the far north side of the Gulf.
00:16A little sliver of it that may mitigate a true hurricane landfall.
00:20But, hey, we haven't had one of these yet this year.
00:23And we may see this become a true hurricane for several hours.
00:25Yeah, and we're talking about flooding rainfall along the Gulf Coast, which you've already had plenty of rainfall this week,
00:33which just makes matters worse.
00:34All right, well, we do have a bit of a timeline to share with you here regarding the next several
00:40days here.
00:41So the storms are going to be organizing through midweek, and it'll likely become a tropical depression or more likely
00:48even a tropical storm, which would gain the name Isaias.
00:51You might remember that one from six years ago, from 2020, by Wednesday night.
00:55So in the next maybe 24 to 30 hours.
00:58Thursday and Friday, it'll be drifting east, then north.
01:01And it's going to be in a zone of limited wind shear for a time.
01:04We are forecasting our first hurricane of 2026 for the Atlantic Basin.
01:09Now, this weekend, it will be drifting north.
01:11It will enter a zone of stronger wind shear, and it will likely lose some of the wind intensity.
01:17So we're probably going to see this become a tropical storm before landfall along the Gulf Coast.
01:23So this may and will likely be our most impactful storm so far this year.
01:27I didn't mean to skip through this here, but as we take a look at the satellite loop, you can
01:32see we're dealing with, as this has been behaving over the past several hours, a huge zone of lift in
01:38the atmosphere.
01:39A lot of convection out there.
01:40It's a pretty healthy disturbance in the southwestern Gulf, basically filling the whole Bay of Campeche there.
01:46And this is going to be drifting east and north.
01:49So there's warm water.
01:50Water temps are in the mid-80s here, 85, 86 degrees, certainly above that 80-degree benchmark.
01:56Limited wind shear at least in the southern half of the Gulf, maybe the southern two-thirds of the Gulf
02:00for part of the storm's life cycle.
02:02And we've had plenty of moisture, so no dry, dusty air around this area.
02:06In fact, there was a hint of dry air earlier, but it's really been gobbled up by the storm.
02:10And the strengthening zone of convection is just winning out.
02:15So here's the current setup here with the zone of limited wind shear.
02:20And we're going to be generally watching this drift east.
02:22The light shading here, that light lavender is where we have limited wind shear.
02:26The deep purple, strong wind shear to the north.
02:28You'll notice, as we get deeper into the evening here, we're still going to see this in a zone of
02:33limited light to moderate wind shear.
02:36Again, there is a pretty impressive amount of wind shear in the northern two-thirds of the Gulf.
02:40This will likely be drifting into the eastern part of the Oval here, into Wednesday.
02:46And we're going to be watching one other big player on the field.
02:49Bernie has put this graphic together this morning.
02:51This upper-level low-pressure system that's going to be drifting over the hill country and the Rio Grande Valley,
02:56that's going to be one of the big drivers, one of the keys to the intensity of the storm, but
03:00also the movement.
03:01And that may feed a little bit of energy into the storm system on the backside.
03:05But it will also lead to a buckling north with the steering flow.
03:09And that would draw this north.
03:10We do think it comes in east of New Orleans.
03:13But, again, it will be entering a zone of wind shear.
03:15So, after strengthening in limited wind shear, Category 1 hurricane, first time of the year for the Atlantic Basin,
03:20and then a narrow zone of wind shear that may take this from a hurricane to a tropical storm.
03:26Lots of eyes on this.
03:27A lot of impacts here that we're expecting.
03:29Primarily east of the center of landfall.
03:31There's not going to be a whole lot on the west side because of the wind shear.
03:33It's going to be lopsided.
03:34But east to the point of landfall, look out for gusts of 60 to 80 miles per hour.
03:39That would happen on Saturday.
03:40And then we're going to see also the risk for some tropical tornadoes east of the center of the storm's
03:45path.
03:46Heavy rain, 8 to 12 inches for some.
03:48Perhaps Gulfport, Biloxi, some of those areas around Mobile Bay and Pensacola, Florida.
03:53Also a secondary zone of 4 to 8 inches upslope there into the Smokies.
03:57And parts especially of the east side of the spine of the Appalachians there into western North Carolina.
04:02So big concerns here.
04:03We're going to keep a close eye on all of this.
