By IBTimes Staff Reporter: Subscribe to IBTimes's RSS feed
September 1, 2011 9:02 PM EDT
Whether Hurricane Katia will have any impact on the United States is still uncertain, but forecasters are keeping a watchful eye on a new tropical threat in the Gulf of Mexico, which they say could become a powerful storm.
A tropical disturbance with increasingly organized thunderstorm activity is over the Gulf of Mexico and it seems to be hitting closer to home.
The Weather Channel said numerous computer models forecast this system developing into a tropical depression or tropical storm late this week.
At 2 a.m. EDT Friday, the National Hurricane Center said the system is "nearly stationary" about 240 miles (385 kilometers) southwest of the Mississippi River mouth. The depression could become a tropical storm later today before reaching Louisiana over the weekend.
"A slow northwestward drift is expected to start later today followed by a turn to the north tonight or Saturday," the center said. "Gradual strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours."
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Forecasters say they have many, many days to monitor Hurricane Katia, which upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane early Thursday morning, and is now located far out in the central Atlantic Ocean. They say it is too early to determine if Katia will ever affect any land areas.
However, the primary threats at this time from the system in the Gulf of Mexico show that there could be torrential flooding rain and at least some coastal flooding, high surf and rip currents, which is a vastly underrated killer, according to The Weather Channel.
Areas most at risk
Those areas most at risk from the tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico are Galveston, Lake Charles, Mobile, New Orleans, and Panama City. Forecasters say the threat level could increase throughout the holiday weekend. That level of threat could also increase depending on the track and intensity of the system. They say the initial threat is from heavy rainfall.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal on Thursday evening declared a state of emergency. He cited the likelihood that coastal and inland areas would be drenched by up to 15 inches of torrential rain within 48 hours.
Oil companies evacuate workers
That the threat could increase was enough to send oil companies packing, as they began evacuating workers in the Gulf of Mexico ahead of the potential powerful storm.
Oil companies like Shell, Exxon Mobil and BP were prompted to shut down production, and Chevron has said it was evacuating non-essential workers, but announced no impacts to production, according to Voice of America reports.
The storm was moving through a heavy concentration of oil and gas platforms off the Louisiana coast and could potentially crimp supplies from the Gulf, which accounts for about 30 percent of U.S. oil and 12 percent of its gas, according to Reuters.
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