A FATALITY
At least one. A carport collapsed at Bridge City in Orange County Texas around 4:45 this morning falling on a person. It was fatal.
SEVERE WEATHER RISK
The Storm Prediction Center has SE Louisiana and extreme South Mississippi under a slight risk of severe weather because of Humberto. This would include the possibility of some spin-off tornadoes. The outlook includes the Baton Rouge/New Orleans area. An earlier Tornado Watch expired at 10:00 a.m. for extreme SW and South/Central Louisiana.
REGIONAL RADAR
At 10:25 a.m., it showed very heavy rain over nearly the south half of Louisiana with heavy rain spreading into the Baton Rouge/New Orleans area. It was also raining over much of West and North Mississippi including some heavy rain spreading into extreme SW Mississippi.
WHAT ABOUT NEW ORLEANS?
The official NWS forecast calls for numerous thunderstorms this afternoon with heavy rain. Showers and thunderstorms are forecast to be numerous at times through Friday. At 10:00 a.m. it was mostly cloudy with SE wind only 3 mph at New Orleans Airport.
OTHER SPOT REPORTS
Baton Rouge…visibility 2 miles in steady moderate rain with 0.65 measured so far.
Alexandria…heavy rain and fog, wind E 14
Beaumont…mostly cloudy. The wind has diminished to only 10 mph.
HUMBERTO MAY HAVE MADE HISTORY
The National Hurricane Center reported late this morning that Humberto grew from a 30-knot tropical depression (35 mph) at mid-morning yesterday to a 75-knot hurricane (85 mph) by 4:00 this morning. That is an increase of 45 knots in 18 hours. According to the NHC, no tropical cyclone in their historical data base has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate when it was already near landfall. NHC is not sure why this happened. They commented “it would be nice to know someday.”
