My Thoughts On Cristobal

TRACK, TRACK, TRACK! The importance of that is similar to the importance of location, location, location to a real estate agent.

The storm is still over land and is yet to develop. Almost every single piece of data I have looked at continues to show the system moving over the warm Gulf of Mexico waters and developing into a strong tropical storm and MAYBE a minimal hurricane. I'm going to go ahead and assume for the purpose of this blog post, it becomes a formidable tropical storm and makes landfall along the Louisiana coast.

• It could affect Arkansas Monday into Tuesday

• The rapid movement of this storm may move it away from the state faster than models project.

• The faster movement will limit excessive rainfall, but flooding is always possible with tropical systems.

• There will be a tornado potential east of the track. These are typically brief and isolated, but there are times they can be more significant with a tropical system if the right conditions develop.

• A track further to the east would limit the impacts on Arkansas

• A track further west would increase the impacts

• As of Friday, the eastern 1/2 of the state will receive the main impacts, but this can change as the storm has not fully developed yet.

Current track from the National Hurricane Center as of Friday morning. By early Tuesday, it's a depression over southern Arkansas. This is a bit faster than previous forecasts.

The European rainfall amounts with the track overlaid to show the higher amounts along and east of the path. REMEMBER, THIS IS A MODEL AND NOT A FORECAST!

The area over eastern Arkansas , Mississippi, and Tennessee indicate where spin and instability will be the greatest. This is the tornado threat. Remember, any change to the track will change the location most prone to tornadoes.

Stay with KATV Channel 7.