The Farmer's Forecast: Watching Francine
By Nick Mikulas
Francine is making a push toward the Louisiana coast, with today being our last day to prepare. I know preparations can be impossible if you are about to harvest, or farm hundreds of acres, but I’ll do my best to give you and idea about what’s on the way for Louisiana.
Francine has steadily strengthened, and appears to be making the turn toward Louisiana. All indications are that this system will make landfall on the coast of Louisiana, likely between Rockefeller Refuge, and Morgan City. This is an uncommon system for our area, as it will be approaching from the southwest. If you’ve lived here for a little while, Hurricane Edith in 1971 was a similar track, but it’s tough to basically get one to make a hard right at Brownsville, and head this way. I’ll share the rainfall total map in this update since I know a lot of you are dealing with some seriously water logged fields. Some 10 inch totals are possible, but this won’t bring the biblical rain totals of a Harvey, or even something like Delta. I expect most areas that are near, and east of the center to be in the 4-8 inch range, with isolated 10 inch totals possible.
Wind is going to be the biggest issue, with the worst of that being tied to the track of Francine. This will likely be a category 2 hurricane at landfall, but you need to prep for a category higher to be safe. That means hurricane force wind gusts will extend along the path, up to 100 miles inland along, and just east of the track of Francine. I’ll be posting updates on my Facebook page at Meteorologist Nick Mikulas as this system approaches, and impacts the state.