A disturbance in the southern Gulf of Mexico has intensified to a tropical storm dubbed Karen, and now several areas in the region are under Tropical storm and hurricane watches.

With tropical storm conditions expected to begin as early as Friday, areas including Biloxi, Miss., Mobile, Ala., Pensacola, Fla., and Panama City, Panama, are all under a hurricane watch. New Orleans, the city heavily affected by Hurricane Katrina, is under a tropical storm watch.

Tropical Strom Karen already has maximum sustained winds of up to 60 mph, and became a tropical storm early Thursday morning. According to The Washington Post, the initial disturbance the storm caused has been getting probed by aircraft regularly, but until now no evidence of a closed surface circulation had been found.

The National Hurricane Center and most models are converging on a landfall roughly 125 miles away from Mobile on Saturday as a strong tropical storm.

Heavy rain is expected along the storm's track over the next several days, with 6-8 inches possible from eastern Louisiana to the western Florida Panhandle. Several inches are expected to come down along the entire East coast, from Florida to Maine.

A possible interaction with a mid-latitude cold front could enhance rainfall potential and amount.

The current official track has the storm landing near Mobile and progressing in a Northeastern direction across Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia before possibly hitting the coast and Atlantic Ocean waters again.

The storm could still die down because of a short window of time allowing it to combine with environmental conditions such as deep dry air and vertical wind shear, which would make it more hostile. It is unclear at the time whether or not it will combine with these conditions to become a stronger storm.

Tags
Tropical storm, Hurricane, Weather forecast