Issued Monday, August 31, 2026
It doesn’t look like much now, but Tropical Storm Edouard has quickly formed in the northern Gulf, just off the coast of Louisiana. It was named at about 7:00 pm. Max sustained winds are currently 40 mph. You can see it on water vapor imagery below, just south of Louisiana. The storm only has tonight and Tuesday morning to strengthen, but with a small, compact center in a low shear environment that is over very warm ocean waters, the storm could explode in intensity and may even make a run for cat 1 hurricane status before making landfall Tuesday afternoon on the border of Texas and Louisiana.
The official forecast calls for it to reach maximum sustained winds of 60 mph before landfall. Cat 1 hurricane status starts at 74 mph. Some guidance is suggesting that the storm will be closer to 75 mph at landfall.
This is very typical of El Nino hurricane seasons. The greatest risk we have this season are spin-ups in the Gulf and/or along the Gulf Stream of the East Coast. El Nino patterns typically create lots of shear out in the Atlantic, preventing storms from strengthening. Tornadoes thrive on shear, while hurricanes can’t survive with shear. As a reminder, wind shear is the increase in the speed of winds as you move up from the surface. Hurricanes need very light winds from the surface all the way up into the atmosphere in order to thrive.
This will be one to watch over the next 18 hours. As of now, it looks like the moisture will continue to be steered northwestward and not impact us on the plateau. I’ll keep an eye on that, though.
