Louisiana will be spared much of any impact from Sally as the Hurricane took an abrupt turn for the Alabama coast before reaching The Boot.
State Climatologist Barry Keim said Sally was always an unpredictable system due to its sluggish two to three-mile an hour pace.
“While this storm is meandering aimlessly in the Gulf all of the steering currents have shifted to the east and as a result, the storm has just been pushed further east,” said Keim.
Hurricane Sally is expected to drop up to 30 inches of rain on parts of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle as it creeps onto land early tomorrow morning.
Keim warned just because we dodged Sally doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods. This season has already tied 1933 for the record of the second most named storms at 20 and it’s only halfway over.
“Even at this moment we have four named storms raging out there, I mean that’s not unprecedented but still pretty rare. We have three other tropical waves so we have a total of seven systems that are under surveillance,” said Keim.
2005 still holds the record for most named storms at 27, but at our current pace, we should blow right past 30 this year. Keim said we’re heading into unusual territory.
“We only have one name left on our list of storms for the season which is Wilford, which I’m assuming will form any day now based on what is happening,” said Keim. “Then we are back to the Greek Alphabet.”
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