Tropical Storm Alex, the season’s first named storm, is gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico and continuing a westward path toward the coasts of southern Texas and northern Mexico.
The storm, which is expected to be a hurricane when it makes landfall Thursday, is not forecast to hit Louisiana, through it likely will bring cloudy, rainy weather to Baton Rouge though the weekend.
“I’m pretty confident we can expect enhanced chances of rainfall across the whole area this week,” said Barry Keim, Louisiana state climatologist.
The National Weather Service predicts an 80 percent chance of rain here Tuesday, and a 70 percent chance of rain on both Wednesday and Thursday. Friday, Saturday and Sunday will all likely bring either scattered or isolated showers and thunderstorms during the Independence Day weekend.
The National Weather Service’s three-day tracking cone projects Alex making landfall at 7 a.m. Thursday near Texas’ southernmost border as either a strong Category Two or a weak Category Three hurricane.
“About two-thirds of the time, the hurricane will land somewhere within that cone,” said Keim, who also teaches in the Department of Geography and Anthropology. “But one-third of the time, it goes rogue and does something unexpected. There is still a lot of Gulf of Mexico for this thing to travel, so it could change course.
Keim said this year is on track to be the second-busiest hurricane season, with the National Weather Service predicting between 14 and 23 named storms in the Atlantic Basin.
The busiest season since 1851, the year records start, was 2005, which had 28 named storms. Keim said July 3 is the average date of the first named storm in the Atlantic basin. In 2005, the first named storm developed June 8.
The National Weather Service predicts eight to 14 of those storms will develop into hurricanes this season, with between three and seven being “major hurricanes,” which are Category 3 or greater.
The Atlantic hurricane season, which includes the Gulf of Mexico, runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, according to the National Hurricane Center. The Pacific hurricane season starts May 15 but ends at the same time as in the Atlantic.
Joseph Suhayda, interim director of the LSU Hurricane Center, said warmer-than-average surface water temperatures and the La Nina wind conditions contribute to this year’s busy season. Last year, the El Nino weather pattern helped reduce storms’s potential to form.
Only nine named storms formed during the below-average 2009 Atlantic hurricane season, and three intensified into hurricanes, two of which were a Category 3 or stronger,
according to the National Weather Service.