The National Weather Service now has 40 active alerts in effect across Alabama, Florida and Louisiana as Hurricane Fausto strengthens in the Gulf, nearly tripling the 15 alerts in place a day earlier and adding Louisiana to the warned area for the first time.
The National Hurricane Center reports Fausto has maximum sustained winds of 70 mph. A second system, Tropical Storm Bertha, is also active with winds near 45 mph.
Louisiana’s addition marks the most significant shift in the past 24 hours. New alerts cover Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas, Lake Salvador and Lake Cataouatche, Terrebonne Bay and Barataria Bay, along with coastal waters from Boothville to Port Fourchon and the Atchafalaya River. Those join warnings that were already in place across Mississippi Sound, Lake Borgne, Breton Sound and Chandeleur Sound.
The original warned zone from Alabama and Florida remains active and has grown more detailed. Alerts continue across North and South Mobile Bay, the Pensacola Bay area including Santa Rosa Sound, Western and Eastern Choctawhatchee Bay, Perdido Bay, and St. Andrews Bay Waterways, with coastal waters warnings extending from Pascagoula, Mississippi, to Apalachicola, Florida.
The National Weather Service says southwest winds of 25 to 40 knots with gusts up to 50 knots are possible over protected waters, with seas building to 8 to 14 feet over the open Gulf. Tropical storm-force winds are expected to persist into Thursday morning across the affected waters. The agency warns that these winds and seas could capsize or damage vessels and reduce visibility.
The National Weather Service is urging mariners to alter plans to avoid the hazardous conditions: remain in port, seek safe harbor, alter course, or secure vessels against the wind and seas. Those instructions apply broadly across the bays, sounds and coastal waters now under warning from the Louisiana marshes to the Florida Panhandle.
With Fausto now classified as a hurricane and Bertha active behind it in the Gulf, residents and mariners along the northern Gulf Coast — including those near New Orleans weather and Mobile weather — should continue monitoring updates from the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center as the alert footprint has expanded significantly since yesterday and could grow further depending on the storm’s track.