I've been waiting for the 11 a.m. EST to write an update. The 5-day forecast for Laura is below. Laura's track has shifted quite a bit to the west since yesterday and there is a fair amount of confidence this will hold at least over the next 3 days. Beyond 3 days there's good model support for a track even farther west so we need to watch how that evolves. A track back to the east a little isn't out of the realm of possibility either. The forecast is for Laura to be a strong category 1 hurricane at landfall along the Louisiana coast Wednesday into Thursday. The intensity forecast is still a bit uncertain. How strong Laura becomes will be mostly determined by how much land interaction there is before it is in the open Gulf. Not counting interaction with Marco, which is still a bit of a wild card but currently not expected to really affect Laura, conditions along Laura's path in the Gulf are favorable for significant strengthening. If Laura avoids a lot of land interaction to the north or south of the Greater Antilles it could be a formidable storm by early next week. Even with land interaction, we've all seen how fast storms can intensify in just a few days so Laura needs to be taken seriously no matter what its path is over the next few days.
Turning to Marco, you can see its 5-day forecast below. Marco is expected to become a hurricane soon but then weaken a little before landfall somewhere along the Louisiana or Texas coast early next week. As a general rule, the stronger Marco is the more eastward it will track so we will want to watch for track shifts should it strengthen more than forecast.
I'll send out another update tomorrow if not before if there's something to report. Have a great weekend.
Chris
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