The weather should be great for Friday night’s high school football games, but a just-formed tropical storm is forecast to make a beeline through the Gulf of Mexico toward Georgia, bringing the possibility of heavy rain to metro Atlanta Sunday and Sunday night.
Tropical Storm Karen formed Thursday morning just off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, packing maximum winds of 60 mph.
Channel 2 meteorologist Karen Minton said the storm “has its sights set on Georgia,” and the National Hurricane Center’s current predicted path has the storm making landfall near the Alabama-Florida line, then making a turn to the northeast and tracking across Atlanta’s southern suburbs.
A hurricane watch is in effect for a large swath of the Gulf coast, from Grand Isle, La., to Indian Pass, Fla.
Minton said skies will be partly cloudy through Saturday, with a 30 percent chance of scattered showers late in the day Saturday. Highs will be in the mid-80s, with lows in the mid-60s, Minton said.
The chance of rain increases to 100 percent Sunday, when highs will hold in the mid-70s.
The National Weather Service warned that Karen will spread abundant Gulf moisture across the southeast late in the weekend.
“The result will be the potential for heavy rainfall across north and central Georgia,” the Weather Service said in a statement early Thursday. “Rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches with isolated amounts of 3 inches are possible, especially across north Georgia.”
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