ORLANDO, Fla. — Hurricane Francine has made landfall at 6 p.m. in Terrebonne Parish, about 30 miles south-southwest of Morgan City, Louisiana.
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The National Hurricane Center said Monday afternoon that Francine has been upgraded to a Category 2 hurricane, with winds in excess of 100 miles per hour.
Francine is located 100 miles west-southwest of New Orleans.
The storm will make landfall in the next hour along the southern Louisiana coast.
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Hurricane conditions are spreading across southern Louisiana and will continue through Wednesday evening.
A storm surge of 5 to 10 feet is possible along the Louisiana coast, where storm surge warnings are in effect.
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Francine is expected to bring 4 to 8 inches of rainfall in the region, with isolated areas receiving 12 inches of rain.
The storm will move north into the Lower Mississippi Valley and become post-tropical by Thursday.
Chief meteorologist Tom Terry is tracking Hurricane Francine live on Channel 9 Eyewitness News.
Earlier story
The National Hurricane Center is tracking several tropical waves in the Atlantic.
One of the newly tracked systems could develop into our next named storm off Florida’s east coast.
Forecast models show the low-pressure system could spin up into a named storm by Sunday or early next week.
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Early indications are that this would then lift toward the Carolinas and not to Florida.
There are also three other tropical waves being tracked in the Central Atlantic.
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Channel 9 meteorologists are also monitoring Hurricane Francine in the western Gulf of Mexico.
Francine is forecast to make landfall in Louisiana on Wednesday night.
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The storm will bring heavy rains, storm surges, and a huge flooding threat to parts of Louisiana and Mississippi.
Channel 9 will continue to keep an eye on the tropics and provide updates on Eyewitness News.
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