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CNN Saturday Morning News

Tropical Storm Barry Looms Over Gulf of Mexico

Aired August 04, 2001 - 08:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: We begin with tropical storm Barry, still parked over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The storm is weak and it poses no threat to any coastal area right now, which is actually more unsettling than if it was a strong system with a clear direction. Barry is expected to hit the Louisiana coast eventually, so people there are beginning to take some precautions.

Flash flood watches are no longer in effect now in south Florida, but a foot or more of rain from Barry is already reported in some areas there. In fact, NASA had to postpone the launch of a satellite from Cape Canaveral because of all the rain yesterday.

And now let's get a check on Barry and the rest of our Saturday morning weather now from Jill Brown.

Again, I asked you this in the last hour, but any sense of where that storm's heading now? Is there any movement to it?

JILL BROWN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, actually, we just got an update from the Hurricane Center and it says it's stationery now.

NELSON: Good.

BROWN: It was a northwest drift. That's, I guess that's good news. It's not moving any closer. But whenever it's stationery, it's sort of like all bets are off. Wait to see it start moving. You can't really predict where it's going until it starts moving in one direction.

NELSON: But it has a chance to build up some steam there...

BROWN: That's right, it does.

NELSON: And that's not good news, right?

BROWN: That is exactly right. We had some strong upper level winds that weakened it a little bit and for the moment it's sort of just maintaining. But those upper level winds should weaken and with that, we think that Barry's got the chance to gain some strength.

So, we'll be watching Barry. Over the weekend it looks like, again, gaining some strength but probably not making landfall until the first part of the work week. Florida has been the one hit by Barry so far. It didn't make land fall. It developed just to the west of Florida, but that brought heavy rain, and that's typically what you expect with a tropical storm. It's just a whole lot of rain.

This is the Doppler estimate from yesterday. It looked the same on Thursday. It looked the same on Wednesday. Some of the totals from the Doppler show it to be about three inches, but if we get the specific reports out of Florida, you can see it was four, five, even nearly eight inches of rain.

Again, that was just one day, and we had about three days of heavy rain. So surprisingly, even though the heavy rain is over, our flash flood watches have been canceled. So it wouldn't be surprising to see those last a little longer, but that's not the case. So good news for Florida.

Now, the Panhandle could see a tropical storm watch later in the day. Again, our tropical storm basically stationery here in the Gulf of Mexico. Some changes coming up, we think. It should straight to drift more to the north or northwest by later today, possibly gaining some strength.

The latest update, again, shows it's nearly stationery. We'll change that northwestern 30 miles per hour to stationery. The winds did stay the same at 40 miles per hour. So we think that we'll see, perhaps later in the day, an upgrade to not just the strength of this, but maybe some of the watches and warnings change.

Right now, a tropical storm watch from Morgan City to Pearl River, and this is the area where we may see the additions made. Again, the track -- and you don't want to get caught up on the track because it's still several days out and it could change a lot. But right now the track brings it up in this general vicinity, coastal Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, maybe Panhandle Florida by late Monday into early Tuesday.

So elsewhere across the country, by the way, we'll be talking about next go around as the heat wave is still with us, the fire danger area still has windy weather in the forecast. So we have some other parts of the country that are suffering a little bit, as well. Busy weekend out here -- Rea, back to you now.

REA BLAKEY, CNN ANCHOR: All right, thanks, Jill.

Now, although Barry is still well over the horizon and does not yet impact the Gulf of Louisiana, people who derive their livelihoods from fishing in that area are being affected. We get that story from Rob Masson of our affiliate WVUE.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROB MASSON, WVUE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Along Bayou Laloutra (ph) in St. Bernard Parish, the tide came in all day along with the shrimpers.

RAUOL GIFFORD, SHRIMPER: We're just going to get right in before anything.

MASSON: Rauol Gifford has seen more than his share of rough weather.

GIFFORD: Because the sky is coming up real quick and we've got to get everyone secure in case something happens.

MASSON: While he checks his shrimp boats' lines, other boat owners move theirs to higher ground.

GIFFORD: I'm coming to pick up my boats and get them back to the city. I just, a lot of people say it's a lot of ifs. It's going to hit, it's not going to come. I don't want to take the chance.

MASSON: But though tides may be up over a foot in some places and the winds gusting to nearly 20 already, nobody knows where tropical storm Barry will move ashore.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't like it slow moving.

MASSON (on camera): While many commercial fishermen were tying up their rigs out of the respect for what tropical storm Barry might bring in, a lot of sports fishermen were going out to see what kind of specs and reds the higher than normal tide might bring in.

MICHAEL NUNEZ, CHARTER BOAT CAPTAIN: I had a few sports out this morning. If you're a redfish fisherman, this is the kind of water you want, because you can get back to them ponds that you can't get in in a normal tide.

MASSON: High tides often bring in a lot of fish but there are no guarantees.

NUNEZ: It's not advisable to be out there in this kind of weather because if you have motor trouble you don't have, you're not going to have anybody out there to tow you in.

MASSON: The high storm tide has already claimed one victim, Breton Island.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we left out there it was about, I'd say, a foot over and still up.

MASSON: Tonight at Shell Beach, the future's uncertain.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm getting older and I'm scared.

MASSON: While some take chances, most take steps to protect their gear from whatever Barry might bring.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLAKEY: Now, whatever Barry might bring, you can track his every move 24 hours a day by clicking onto CNN.com/weather, your AOL keyword: CNN.

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