Tropical Storm Fred appears headed for the Florida Panhandle but the Louisiana/Mississippi Line remains at the edges of the system’s cone of uncertainty.
The Hurricane Center shows Fred is likely to lose tropical storm status sometime today as it crosses the mountains in Hispaniola. Once it reaches Cuba tomorrow tit is projected the system will gather strength and reform into a tropical storm.
Fred looks on track to enter the Gulf of Mexico Sunday and make landfall somewhere along the Gulf Coast Monday. State Climatologist Barry Keim said right now landfall appears most likely at Apalachicola.
“I just want to emphasize that it is very, very early in the forecasting of the storm, things could easily change and this storm bears watching from the perspective of Louisiana because anything could happen,” said Keim.
It’s been a quiet hurricane season in the Gulf so far but Keim said the Saharan Dust Layer has lifted and we should expect things to get a lot more active in the coming weeks.
“The latest NOAA forecast for hurricanes actually upped the forecast from where they were in June, so we are really getting ready to move into the teeth of the season,” said Keim.