Tropical weather batters Gulf Coast with brisk winds and rain

NEW ORLEANS — A disorganized storm system carrying tropical storm-force winds churned through the Gulf of Mexico toward the southern U.S. on Friday, lashing coastal communities with bands of rain, threatening Father’s Day tourism business and forcing the postponement of Juneteenth celebrations in Mississippi and Alabama.

Forecasters said the broad system was moving north over the Gulf of Mexico with maximum sustained winds of 72 km/h, which is above the tropical storm threshold of 63 km/h. It hadn’t been designated a tropical storm as of Friday afternoon, however, because it lacked a single, well-defined centre, said Benjamin Schott, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service office in Slidell, Louisiana.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida — extending from Morgan City, La., to the Okaloosa-walton County line in the Florida Panhandle. Coastal surge flooding was possible and flash-flood watches extended along the coast from southeast Louisiana into the Florida panhandle and well inland into Mississippi, Alabama and western Georgia.