The prime threats from Tropical Storm Francine on coastal Texas now are mainly gusty winds, beach flooding and rip currents through Thursday afternoon.
The National Hurricane Center reports Francine continues on track towards Louisiana — moving further away from the Texas coast.
As opposed to Francine’s early models, Texas won’t bear the storm’s brunt, and it’s on track to miss Houston altogether.
“The hurricane forecasters are responding to pretty consistent modeling that has developed over the last 24 hours or so that shows that after it forms, Francine is likely to remain well off shore of the Texas coast and eventually make landfall in southwestern or probably somewhere in south central Louisiana on Wednesday,” Eric Berger, a Space City Weather meteorologist told Houston Matters on Monday.
Rain has completely disappeared from the San Antonio forecast this week. Daytime highs will push back up into the mid- and upper-90s by Friday.
There were also high chances for two other systems in the Central and Eastern Atlantic regions to strengthen into tropical depressions later in the week. Both were expected to continue westward tracks, but it was too soon 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 Nov. 30.
September tends to be the peak of any hurricane season, and storm experts predicted 2024 would be the busiest hurricane season on record.
The year has already seen serious hurricane and tropical storms. Among them were Alberto in June; Beryl, the earliest Category 5 storm to form in the Atlantic, struck Texas in July; in August, Debby struck Florida, and Ernesto flooded communities from Puerto Rico to Bermuda.
If this year's list of names is exhausted, forecasters will not draw more names from the Greek alphabet, as was done in 2020. The World Meteorological Organization decided in 2021 that a supplemental list of names would be used instead.
Preparations
The Texas Department of Public Safety has regularly reminded all residents to prepare themselves for the hurricane season. When there is activity in the Gulf, its advice for coastal residents has been for them to study hurricane evacuation maps and identify at least two routes they could take — a primary route and a backup route.
An emergency kit should include water, non-perishable food, medications, first aid, flashlights, batteries, battery-powered radio, personal hygiene items and important documents. The Texas Department of State Health Services has also offered an online checklist and a printable PDF checklist.
If residents have not assembled their kits by now, they should do so as soon as possible, ensuring that those documents can be quickly located, added to the kit and taken with them. They should also keep in mind 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 counsel consumers about how to avoid scams as they prepare to evacuate, how to organize those important documents, and how to rebuild finances after enduring a severe weather emergency, among other topics. The FTC's advice comes in multiple languages, including Ukrainian, Spanish, Tagalog and Arabic.
Unexpected effects
The tropical weather may also indirectly lead to shark attacks.
At least four shark-related incidents — including at least two shark bites — were reported off South Padre Island during the Fourth of July holiday, just as Hurricane Beryl moved closer to Texas.
Kesley Banks, a research scientist at the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said that large coastal sharks may increase their feeding behavior just before meteorological disturbances strike coastal communities, according to a recent study from Florida.
“Sharks can predict a hurricane before us," Banks explained to Houston Public Media in early July. "They’re obviously increasing feeding prior to a hurricane just like we prep before a large meteorological disturbance. Likely it is just a case of mistaken identity during that increase feeding behavior prior to the storm.”
According to a statement from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, "shark encounters of this nature are not a common occurrence in Texas. When bites from sharks do occur, they are usually a case of mistaken identity by sharks looking for food."
Houston Public Media's Spencer Plato and Sarah Grunau contributed to this report.
