Hurricane Nate’s outer bands roll over Louisiana coast hours before expected Category 2 landfall

With hours to go before the hurricane makes landfall somewhere between Louisiana and the Florida panhandle, radar imagery showed precipitation in the vicinity of New Orleans. The eye of the hurricane was also visible on local radar.

The National Hurricane Center announced in the afternoon that Hurricane Nate is “expected” to be a Category 2 storm when it makes landfall over the U.S. Gulf Coast in the late evening Saturday – an escalation from prior forecasts.

Though not yet a “major” hurricane according to the standards set by the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, a Category 2 storm is capable “extremely dangerous winds” at 96 to 110 mph that “will cause extensive damage.”

The storm was still a Category 1 hurricane with 90 mph winds, located about 100 miles south of the Mississippi River and moving at 25 mph north-north west.

The Twitter account for the National Weather Service office for New Orleans/Baton Rouge retweeted photos and video showing the first storm clouds rolling in.

“Conditions are quickly deteriorating as outer bands of Hurricane #Nate arrive. Be safe, all! We’re with you through the storm,” NWS New Orleans tweeted.

States of emergency have been declared in Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

President Trump has approved an emergency declaration for Louisiana, unlocking federal resources. Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has named William Doran III as the federal coordinating officer for federal recovery operations in the affected areas, the White House said in a statement Saturday morning.

Trump tweeted that the “great team” at FEMA is “prepared” for the storm.

The Pentagon announced that two ships, the USS Iwo Jima and the USS New York, are being deployed from Mayport, Fla., with embarked elements of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Gulf of Mexico behind the hurricane to support FEMA where needed.

Hurricane Nate brings the threat of heavy rainfall, flash flooding, “life-threatening” storm surge, surf and rip current conditions, strong gusts of wind, and even isolated tornadoes. Up to seven to 11 feet of storm surge could happen between the mouth of the Mississippi River and the Alabama-Mississippi border coasts, according to the NHC.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, whose city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, declared a state of emergency on Thursday and some evacuations followed on Friday. The city is bracing for possible flooding as parts of the city’s drainage system are not in full working order.

“We are in a stronger place w/ power and pumps. But, if #Nate produces large amount of rainfall, we could see some localized flooding,” Landrieu tweeted Friday.

He shared pictures of himself Saturday afternoon posing with people working to fix or operate the city’s drain pumps.

The storm has been tied to at least 25 deaths in Central America so far.