The Next Katrina? Laura Is Experiencing “Rapid Intensification” And Will Likely Make Landfall As “A Major Hurricane”
We need to keep a very close eye on this new “monster storm” that is brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. Laura was officially declared to be a hurricane on Tuesday morning, and at this moment it is projected to make landfall along the Gulf Coast on either late Wednesday or early Thursday. But before it does, it is expected to undergo a process known as “rapid intensification”, and that just happens to be the exact same process that Hurricane Katrina went through just before it absolutely devastated the city of New Orleans in 2005. After undergoing “rapid intensification”, meteorologists are expecting Hurricane Laura to come ashore as a category 3 storm with winds “of around 115 mph”…
Hurricane Laura will make landfall as a major hurricane, with winds of around 115 mph and a storm surge up to 13 feet, when it strikes near the Louisiana-Texas border late Wednesday or early Thursday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The storm surge estimates are “staggering amounts, life-threatening amounts,” NHC Director Ken Graham said.
At this point, hundreds of thousands of people living along the Gulf Coast have already been evacuated, and we are being told that this storm could cause “devastating damage” to coastal communities…
Laura is expected to become a Category 3 storm, which routinely cause “devastating damage” to homes, trees and infrastructure, according to the National Weather Service. Recent Category 3 storms include Harvey, which hit Texas in 2017, and Rita, which hit Louisiana in 2005.
When Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 2005, it was also a category 3 storm with top winds of approximately 125 mph.
So if current forecasts are accurate, Laura will be a slightly less powerful storm than Katrina was.