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The second storm of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season is\u00a0expected to form Wednesday\u00a0or Thursday along the Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n
The weather system, currently spinning off the coast of the Florida Panhandle,\u00a0could either form as a tropical depression or a tropical storm.\u00a0If the depression’s winds reach 39 mph, it would become Tropical Storm Barry.<\/p>\n
It’s then expected to hit the Gulf Coast as a hurricane on Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said.<\/p>\n
“This system has the potential to become a dangerous hurricane,” the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, Louisiana, said on its Facebook page on Tuesday. “The threat for damaging winds and deadly storm surge is increasing.”<\/p>\n
The storm could bring more heavy rain and flooding to New Orleans, which was inundated with up to half a foot of rain on Wednesday morning, triggering a flash flood emergency for the area. A tornado or waterspout was also spotted near the University of New Orleans, WWL-TV said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even more concerning, the Mississippi River in New Orleans is now forecast to crest near 20 feet on Saturday, the weather service said \u2013 and the average levee height for New Orleans is 20 feet, said meteorologist David Bernard of Fox8 in New Orleans.<\/p>\n
University of Georgia meteorologist Marshall Shepherd called this “a potentially dire situation.”<\/p>\n
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared\u00a0a state of emergency Wednesday for all of Louisiana because of the possibility of flooding, winds and storm surge throughout the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere could be a considerable amount of overtopping of Mississippi River levees in Plaquemines Parish on both the east bank and the west bank,\u201d Edwards said at a Wednesday news conference.<\/p>\n
He\u00a0ordered the Louisiana National Guard to begin deploying soldiers and high-water vehicles to the state’s most vulnerable areas.<\/p>\n
The National Hurricane Center said Wednesday morning that there’s a 100% chance a tropical depression will form within the next 48 hours\u00a0in the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n
Rain, and lots of it, appears likely to be the main threat from the storm.<\/p>\n