BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – Tropical Depression Nine, which is struggling to enter the Gulf of Mexico, is not expected to hit Louisiana, which is continuing to recover from recent floods and will instead impact Florida later this week.
Nine is expected to eventually turn to the Northeast region of the Gulf, where it will make landfall on the Florida Gulf Coast on Thursday, September 1, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The tropical depression will transform into a tropical storm by the time it lands in Florida, though the National Hurricane Center says the intensity and impact of the storm is more uncertain than usual due to the storm’s struggle to organize.
The National Hurricane Center said wind shears will have a large bearing on how strong the storm becomes.
About three inches of rainfall from the storm are expected so far in south and central Florida — including the Florida Keys — as well as western Cuba.
Nine is looking to accelerate to the Northeast of the Gulf, making heavy rainfall all the more mitigated.
Louisiana officials were monitoring the tropical depression last week, just as the Baton Rouge area and other regions of the state recover from historic flooding which has destroyed more than 60,000 homes, Breitbart Texas reported.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) and federal agencies like FEMA had already began reviewing scenarios should the storm make landfall in the state, though new projections make a Louisiana-landfall unlikely.
John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.