Weather watchers are tracking ominous activity in the Gulf of Mexico. An Air Force Reserve helicopter is on standby, ready to fly to a spot off Mexico鈥檚 Yucatan Peninsula where a storm system is building steam.
Forecasters predict the unnamed storm 鈥� the first major tropical storm of this year's hurricane season 鈥� could make landfall later this week. The National Weather Service has said the storm system will become a tropical storm.
鈥淲e still have plenty of time to watch it,鈥� says , a meteorologist for KRGV Channel 5 News, the ABC affiliate in the Rio Grande Valley. He says the eye of the storm is approximately 800 miles from Texas and estimates that it won鈥檛 be until Thursday that Texas residents could begin to feel its effects.
The predicted landfall area remains broad, stretching from South Texas to either side of the Florida coast, and Shoemakers says computer models have yet to determine the storm鈥檚 exact path. It could either head toward Louisiana and Florida or travel west and make landfall along the Texas coast.
鈥淭he more reliable computer models are trying to push [the storm] farther west,鈥� Shoemaker says. 鈥淚f a storm does come this way, you want to be prepared even if it doesn鈥檛 become a hurricane 鈥� [because] it doesn鈥檛 even take a hurricane to do major damage.鈥�
He points to Tropical Storm Allison, which pounded Southeast Texas with heavy rain in 2001 and caused major flooding in Houston, as an example of the damage tropical storms can inflict.
Shoemaker advises residents in the Rio Grande Valley and those along the Texas coast to be prepared.
鈥淚t鈥檚 always better to be safe than sorry,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hen you鈥檙e dealing with tropical systems, especially, they can flare up sometimes at the last minute even if you鈥檙e not expecting them to 鈥� sometimes they can go from weak tropical storm to a hurricane in less than a day.鈥�
Written by Molly Smith.
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