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The primary threats from Tropical Storm Francine along the Texas coast are now gusty winds, beach flooding, and rip currents through Thursday afternoon.
The National Hurricane Center reports that Francine is continuing its path toward Louisiana, moving away from the Texas coast.
Unlike early models of Francine, Texas will not be impacted by the storm and its passage will not affect Houston at all.
“Hurricane forecasters are responding to a fairly consistent pattern that has developed over the past 24 hours or so showing that after forming, Francine is likely to remain well off the Texas coast and ultimately make landfall in southwest or likely somewhere in south-central Louisiana on Wednesday,” Eric Berger, a meteorologist with Space City Weather, told Houston Matters on Monday.
Rain has completely disappeared from the forecast for San Antonio this week. Daytime highs will climb back into the 90s and 95s on Friday.
There was also a high chance that two other systems in the central and eastern Atlantic could become tropical depressions later in the week. Both were expected to continue tracking westward, but it is too early to tell if they would pose serious threats to the United States.
The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season
The Atlantic hurricane season officially began on June 1 and ends on November 30.
September is typically the peak of any hurricane season, and storm experts predicted that 2024 would be the most active hurricane season on record.
There have already been major hurricanes and tropical storms this year, including Alberto in June; Beryl, the first Category 5 storm to form in the Atlantic, hit Texas in July; Debby hit Florida in August; and Ernesto flooded communities from Puerto Rico to Bermuda.
If this year’s list of names is exhausted, meteorologists will no longer draw names from the Greek alphabet, as was done in 2020. The World Meteorological Organization decided in 2021 that a supplementary list of names would be used instead.
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National Weather Service
Preparations
The Texas Department of Public Safety has regularly reminded all residents to prepare for hurricane season. When there is activity in the Gulf, its advice to coastal residents has been to study hurricane evacuation maps and identify at least two routes they could take: a primary route and an alternate route.
An emergency kit should include water, nonperishable food, medications, a first aid kit, flashlights, batteries, a battery-operated radio, personal hygiene items, and important documents. The Texas Department of State Health Services has also provided an online checklist and a printable PDF checklist.
If residents have not yet prepared their first aid kits, they should do so as soon as possible, making sure that these documents can be quickly located, added to the kit, and carried with them. They should also consider the special needs of elderly or disabled loved ones or neighbors.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has also offered disaster-related advice. A collection of articles, videos and other resources advise consumers on how to avoid scams as they prepare to evacuate, how to organize those important documents and how to rebuild their finances after experiencing a severe weather emergency, among other topics. The FTC’s tips are available in several languages, including Ukrainian, Spanish, Tagalog and Arabic.
Unexpected effects
The tropical climate can also indirectly cause shark attacks.
At least four shark-related incidents, including at least two cases of bites, were reported on South Padre Island over the July 4 holiday, just as Hurricane Beryl was approaching Texas.
Kesley Banks, a research scientist at the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, explained that large coastal sharks may increase their feeding behavior just before weather disturbances affect coastal communities, according to a recent study from Florida.
“Sharks can predict a hurricane before we get there,” Banks told Houston Public Media in early July. “They obviously increase their feeding before a hurricane, just like we prepare before a major weather disturbance. It’s probably just a case of mistaken identity during that increase in feeding behavior before the storm.”
According to a statement from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, “Shark encounters of this nature are not a common occurrence in Texas. When shark bites do occur, they are usually due to misidentification by sharks looking for food.”
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