After making landfall in Louisiana and quickly moving north to Tennessee within a day, Tropical Rainstorm Francine is expected to stall, unleashing days of rain across multiple states in the South.
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00:00We do want to talk to Matt Benz, meteorologist Matt Benz, who has the latest on this storm and
00:06Matt, you know, it's sometimes the lines are blurred between a true tropical system and then
00:12an area of low pressure aloft and it's going to get kind of murky over the next few days,
00:15but the impacts may still remain pretty significant. Yeah, we're going to still
00:19talk about at least the moisture feed that's coming off the Gulf of Mexico and into what is,
00:24well, what was Francine. Of course, we're still talking about rainstorm Francine as it tracks
00:29pretty much over the same areas here over the next couple of days. Right now, the storm
00:33moving about the Memphis area right now, but you'll notice it doesn't move much over the
00:37next couple of days. And unlike when it made landfall yesterday, we had all the impacts
00:42right around the base of the storm. This is going to change now over the next couple of days with
00:46the moisture feed coming a little bit farther east through middle Tennessee, through Alabama
00:50and through Georgia. And that'll be the case here for tomorrow. So while the name Francine may go
00:55away, the flooding, at least issues are not going to go away for much of the southeast U.S.
01:00And this, of course, will continue as we head into tomorrow night and unfortunately,
01:04as we head into this weekend as well. So future radar taking us one direction, but here's the
01:09storm. The upper level low stalls out. What is left of Francine is going to be with us now through
01:14the weekend, and this could put down some heavy rainfall. Like I said, the low, everyone focuses
01:19on the low at landfall for where you see all the impacts. But now as we head towards this weekend,
01:23the actual impacts are going to be a little bit farther away from where the low is. So as we take
01:26a look at rainfall amounts, you can see much of eastern Alabama through Georgia, even up in the
01:32middle Tennessee. This is going to be the area of flooding now, Jeff, over the next couple of days.
01:37And Matt, there is another area of disturbed weather just off the Carolina coast that,
01:43again, south of the, Bernie always says, the belly of the high pressure system. And I can't get that
01:49out of my head. But anatomically, when it comes to pattern recognition in the atmosphere,
01:53that's often a place where we look for potential development. And we got warm water still and not
01:58a whole lot of wind shear. Yeah, not a lot of wind shear. And we do have at least some moisture,
02:02the moisture envelope from Francine moving eastward that's going to help interact with
02:06this what could be a rainstorm here as we head into later this weekend, early next week. Right
02:10now, AccuWeather has a high potential here from the 15th to the 17th. Something we'll have to keep
02:15a very close eye on for the Carolina coast now as we head into next week as it slow tracks into that
02:20area. Heavy rain, strong winds expected for much of the region. Could be beneficial rainfall,
02:24but of course, too much rain, Jeff, always a problem. Absolutely. Well, we appreciate your
02:28insight as always. Meteorologist Matt Benz. Matt, always good to talk to you and great insight there
02:34as always. Let's take a look at some of the other concerns in the short term as we track the still
02:39tropical rainstorm, Francine, moving through parts of the central U.S. And overall, we are facing,
02:45again, drenching rain, as Matt mentioned, over the Memphis area up into Jonesboro and now the
02:50Missouri Bootheel, western Tennessee, even areas as far north as land between the lakes here into
02:56western Kentucky, areas like Murray, Kentucky. Steady rain, Mayfield, steady rain building in
03:01into areas here out near Cairo and some of these spots here where the
03:05Ohio River dumps into the Mississippi River.