After forming along the Yucatan Channel Thursday and generating near hurricane-strength winds, tropical storm Karen has weakened and become disjointed as it makes its way towards coastal communities on the Gulf of Mexico.
Karen is expected to make landfall Saturday night or early Sunday morning, brushing the Louisiana coast and making a second landfall near Mobile, Ala. and Pensacola, Fla.
Strong southwesterly winds and low-level circulation have removed the majority of thunderstorm activity and made it unlikely the storm will regain much, if any, of its former strength, according to the Weather Channel.
A tropical storm warning is is place for the Morgan City, La. region along state's coast, while tropical storm watches are in effect for a strip of land reaching from New Orleans east to Panama City, Fla.
The National Hurricane Center reports that wind and storm surges are the biggest hazards to land.
"The combination of storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters," the center said, adding that surges up to 4 feet may occur.
Karen is the 11th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and officially ends Nov. 30. She is the second tropical storm to make landfall in the US this year, preceded by tropical storm Andrea, which made landfall in northwestern Florida in June before moving along the East Coast.
Numerous oil and natural gas extraction operations underway in the Gulf of Mexico were halted as the storm approached. "In all, 185 platforms and 18 rigs were evacuated, accounting for 693,345 barrels a day of oil and about 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas," Bloomberg News reported, adding that 39 percent of natural gas-production sites and nearly half of oil output was shut down due to the storm.