Tropical Storm Francine is expected to reach the coast of Louisiana on Wednesday as a Category 2 hurricane, meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said in an update on Monday afternoon.

Francine’s structure, which produced sustained winds of 65 mph, continued to improve throughout Monday afternoon. The latest Air Force reconnaissance reported a forming inner core with a partial eyewall, NHC forecaster Philippe Papin said in a 4 p.m. discussion.

“The forming inner core was previously observed by reconnaissance missions and is currently still visible on radar,” Papin wrote in the update, “and the tropical storm appears to be intensifying even more significantly in the near term.”

Given current conditions in the Gulf of Mexico, which include warm sea surface temperatures, high humidity and low vertical wind shear, Papin said Francine is expected to reach hurricane status Monday night or early Tuesday morning.

Nevertheless, Papin said shear forces are expected to increase significantly in the 12 to 18 hours before Francine makes landfall, preventing further intensification.

Updated route and warnings

At 4 p.m. on Monday, the National Hurricane Center shifted the storm’s track slightly to the west. The storm is expected to arrive near Cameron on Wednesday afternoon.

Life-threatening storm surge is possible in parts of Upper Texas and coastal Louisiana, where storm surge warnings are in effect. Damaging hurricane-force winds are expected in southern Louisiana on Wednesday, and heavy rains and flash flooding are likely throughout the region through Thursday.

A hurricane warning was issued for the Louisiana coast from Sabine Pass to Morgan City on Monday afternoon.

Here are all the watches and warnings that were in effect as of 4 p.m. Monday, according to the National Weather Service:

Storm surge warning

• High Island, Texas, to the mouth of the Mississippi
• Vermilion Bay

Hurricane warning

• The coast of Louisiana from Sabine Pass eastward to Morgan City

Storm surge warning

• Mouth of the Mississippi to the border between Mississippi and Alabama
• Lake Maurepas
• Lake Pontchartrain

Hurricane warning

• The coast of Louisiana from Morgan City eastward to Grand Isle

Tropical Storm Warning

• From Morgan City to Grand Isle
• From High Island to Sabine Pass

Tropical Storm Warning

• Barra del Tordo, Mexico, to the mouth of the Rio Grande
• Mouth of the Rio Grande to High Island, Texas
• East of Grand Isle to the mouth of the Pearl River, including the New Orleans metropolitan area
• Lake Pontchartrain
• Lake Maurepas

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Further disturbances in the Atlantic

Meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center were tracking two more disturbances in the Atlantic on Monday afternoon that could potentially form within the next week.

A low pressure system over the central tropical Atlantic continued to produce scattered showers and thunderstorms at 4 p.m., hurricane forecasters said. Meteorologists said a tropical depression or tropical storm could form later this week as the system moves west-northwest.

According to the National Hurricane Center, the probability that the system would form within the next week was 60 percent as of 4 p.m. Monday, slightly lower than Sunday’s forecast.

The probability is increasing that a low pressure system will combine with a strong tropical wave several hundred kilometers southwest of the Cape Verde Islands near the African coast before favorable conditions prevail later this week.

Meteorologists said the probability of this system forming within the next week was 70 percent as of Monday afternoon.

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