As of 11 pm on August 24, Marco is fading rapidly and was just downgraded to a tropical depression. It is not expected to last much longer. The center did make landfall over Louisiana before it turned west, but most of the rain was in the right front quadrant, where it brought scattered heavy showers and a little severe weather to parts of AL, FL, and GA.

Now all weather watchers’ eyes turn towards Cuba, where TS Laura is moving off of western Cuba into the very warm Gulf of Mexico. Computer models generally agree that it will make landfall as a hurricane near the border between LA and TX, although there are still some factors which could alter that. While it is likely to become a hurricane and is already developing an eye wall, the models do not agree on how strong it will be. With two days over very warm water, it could develop rapidly into a strong hurricane.

Once it makes landfall, it will move north, then shift to moving east over Tennessee and into NC and VA by late in the week. Because of the uncertainty about when it will turn east, northern AL and GA as well as most of SC, NC, and VA are all in the 5-day cone for Saturday. So there is a chance some of those locations could see some gusty winds and rain as the storm moves through the region, although Laura will be a post-tropical depression at that point and the winds won’t be very strong.

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