The Thursday morning tropical forecast continued the eastward trend that had started Wednesday morning, which may bring the center over Acadiana but the worst impacts out of the region.
While the Hurricane Hunters will be flying the storm Thursday afternoon to go searching for a center, there still isn't a defined low that the models can point to which means that change is still likely.
National Hurricane Center forecasters are still bullish on development though, giving an 80% chance we have tropical system on Thursday and 90% chance we have one on Friday.
Model data suggests that this will become Tropical Storm Claudette, although it may remain just a strong tropical depression.
Regardless of it becoming a depression or storm the impacts are largely going to be the same with certain areas along the central Gulf Coast facing a flooding threat.
That threat doesn't appear to be manifesting in Acadiana, with the strongest rain located well east of the center.
Locally we may be getting between 1-4" of rain on average, with a few hot spots pushing 6" in the southeastern parts of Acadiana, the highest rain totals will be located in eastern Acadiana and progressively getting drier to the west.
Since the center of the storm will pass so close to us we will get a pretty strong breeze with gusts on Saturday and Sunday picking up between 20-30 mph which isn't expected to cause much damage.
There is the threat of flooding across the larger Gulf Coast though, especially between approximately New Orleans and Mobile Bay where a few narrow swaths of 10-12" rainfall will be possible.
That type of rainfall could lead to some flash flooding, particularly along low lying roadways, so extra caution should be taken (if not avoided) if traveling this weekend.
We've already seen the models swing back and forth so this forecast certainly isn't set in stone so changes are still possible, especially once a center is actually defined.
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