We are ready for a pretty crazy and complicated three days in the Gulf of Mexico. There will be two storms that generally affect the same area, about 36-48 hours apart.
First is Tropical Storm Marco, which is almost a hurricane. It has winds of 70 mph and is predicted to strengthen after a hurricane before making landfall Monday afternoon through noon. It is unlikely that it will intensify too much before making landings in southeastern Louisiana or Mississippi. However, there will be small to moderate storm surges and floods from this storm. The problem is this: Marco will be followed 36-48 hours later by Tropical Storm Laura.
Marco was close to hurricane strength as it crossed the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center said at 8 a.m. ET Sunday.
TROPICAL STORM MARCO SPARKS HURRICANE WATCH AS IT HEADS TO LOUISIANA, LAURA ALSO ON THE ROAD
A car was sitting in floodwaters caused by Tropical Storm Laura in Salinas, Puerto Rico, on Saturday, August 22, 2020. Laura began traveling across Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands on Saturday morning and was expected to hit the Dominican Republic, Haiti and parts of Cuba during the day. course to the west.
(AP photo / Carlos Giusti)
Laura is currently over Haiti and will be traveling with and presumably across Cuba the next day. After that, it has a very good chance of strengthening rapidly and as of now is predicted to be a CAT 2 as the landfall makes somewhere about 50-100 miles west of Marco from central Louisiana to eastern Texas. Landfall should sometimes be between overnight Tuesday to Wednesday afternoon, depending on how far west it is moving. Further westward Texas would cause a later landfall. Some models make it a major hurricane and that is quite possible.
The worst case scenario is where Marco does some minor damage and weakens infrastructure, saturates land and causes people for a much stronger second punch from Laura.
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We are in a very active hurricane season and are still about three weeks from the peak. Water temperatures throughout the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico are above average; in some cases to the northeast the water is 5 to 7 degrees above average.
Fox News’ James Rogers contributed to this article.
