Meteorological History
An upper level low persisted over the Bahamas where it became a tropical depression on September 12. The depression drifted southwestward bypassing southern Florida and the Florida Keys. Initially, the depression was not forecast to strengthen rapidly into a tropical storm due to unfavorable conditions around it. The tropical depression then turned northwestward where it slowly reached tropical storm strength on September 14 and was named Felice by the National Hurricane Center.
The following day, the winds of Felice increased to 55 mph (90 km/h) as the center of the storm was located 300 miles (480 km) southeast of Louisiana. The winds of Felice extended for 100 miles (160 km) to the north of the center as the storm continued on its west-northwest track at speeds of 14-15 mph (23–24 km/h). Because Felice was a poorly organized tropical storm in its early stages, forecasters had a difficult time to track its movement. Initially, forecasters thought that a new center had formed north of the previous track based on data from a radar station in New Orleans, however that claim was rejected because of technical problems and the poor organization of the storm.
As Felice continued moving northwest, meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center initially forecast the storm to reach hurricane strength in the next 24 hours. However, strengthening was slow since the storm was still poorly organized. Despite this, Felice's winds continue to strengthen to 60 mph (97 km/h) as the storm continued to move west-northwest at 18 mph (29 km/h) as the storm moved 130 miles south of New Orleans, Louisiana. Felice's winds peaked at 70 mph and the pressure fell to 997 millibars as the storm made landfall near High Island. After making landfall, Felice turned northward and crossed northern Texas and drifted over southeastern Oklahoma where radars at the Storm Prediction Center (then known as the National Severe Storms Laboratory) in Norman, Oklahoma depicted the dying storm having an eye-like structure. Felice then dissipated on September 17 as result of cooler air entering the storm.
Read more about this topic: Tropical Storm Felice
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