Hurricane Isaias was intensifying Thursday as the Gulf Coast braced for a direct hit from the Atlantic season’s first hurricane, somewhere between eastern Mississippi and the western Florida Panhandle within 48 hours, forecasters said.

“The worst impacts of Isaias are going to be exaggeratedly on the eastern flank of the storm. But basically, anyone east of Biloxi is on notice, with a special notice for folks between Mobile and Destin, [Florida,] right now,” Houston-based meteorologist Matt Lanza wrote, regarding potential landfall, on his Eyewall blog.

Isaias has tied a 121-year-old record for the latest-forming initial hurricane of the Atlantic season. That mark was set on Oct. 8, 1905, according to the National Weather Service.

Hurricane Isaias tracking map: Here’s the latest forecast and warning areas

National Hurricane Center forecasters say Isaias is expected to remain a strong Category 1 or potentially Category 2 hurricane at landfall, likely along coastal Mississippi, Alabama, or the western Florida Panhandle late Friday or early Saturday.

Isaias forecast

The storm’s maximum winds are expected to peak at 110 mph by late Friday afternoon, which would make it nearly a Category 3 hurricane, before moving inland by early Saturday morning, the hurricane center’s advisory said.

A hurricane watch was issued Wednesday from Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to Indian Pass, Florida. A storm surge watch was in effect Thursday from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Florida’s Steinhatchee River.

Isaias was located 175 miles north-northwest of Progreso, Mexico, and 385 miles south-southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River, according to the hurricane center’s 8 a.m. advisory. Its maximum sustained winds were holding steady at 80 mph as it moved east-northeast at 9 mph. Its hurricane-force winds extended up to 15 miles from the center and its tropical-storm-force winds extended up to 90 miles from the center.

Isaias is expected to track northeast today and north on Friday, according to forecasters. It likely will pass to the north of the Yucatan Peninsula on Thursday and then strike the U.S. northern Gulf Coast late Friday or early Saturday.

National Hurricane Center forecasters expect it to peak in strength before reaching the coast, and Isaias could rapidly intensify over the coming hours. Isaias will continue strengthening through Friday morning, and “almost all guidance still shows a Category 1 or 2 hurricane at landfall,” the center’s advisory said.

Forecasters also said the storm is likely to be growing in size as it approaches the northern Gulf Coast.

El Niño effect

During El Niño, low-level surface winds blowing from east to west across the Pacific are weakened or sometimes reversed. It causes a shift in the jet stream and drives record global heat, severe droughts, wildfires and shrinking water supplies. El Niño also typically curtails hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin. When tropical systems form in the Pacific Ocean during El Niños, that increases wind shear in the Caribbean, making it difficult for storms to form there.

Notable hurricanes that have hit the eastern United States during an El Niño include Lili in 2002, Ivan in 2004 and Idalia in 2023.

But now, the wind shear in the Gulf has weakened a bit compared with other tropical regions, so the Gulf is “a little more primed for development,” said Lindsey Long, a meteorologist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center.

Storm surge threat

Isaias brings an increasing risk of strong winds and “life-threatening” storm surge for areas of the northern Gulf Coast, the hurricane center said. Some areas in the Panhandle, including Indian Pass and the Aucilla River, and Yankeetown could see storm surge between 5 to 7 feet.

Santa Rosa Beach, Sandestin and Freeport in the Panhandle could see significant to extensive impacts from wind and storm surge, including some damage to mobile homes and roofing, scattered power outages, potentially impassable roads from large debris and the possibility for “structural damage to buildings, with several washing away,” the local National Weather Service office said in an advisory Wednesday afternoon.

“Life-threatening” surge is also possible in coastal Levy County in north-central Florida on the west coast, where a storm surge watch was in place Wednesday, according to an advisory from the National Weather Service Tampa Bay office.

Between 3 to 7 inches of rainfall is expected from Friday through the weekend, with up to 10 inches possible, across the central Gulf coast from far southeastern Louisiana to the Panhandle, the hurricane center’s latest advisory said.

Hurricane history

Hurricane season ends Nov. 30. Overall Atlantic hurricane activity, using a measurement that deals with the number of storms, their strength and how long they last, is on track to be the quietest since modern data started around 1950, thanks to El Niño, which could become the strongest one ever recorded, Klotzbach said.

Since the start of the satellite era, the latest date for the first Atlantic hurricane to form was Sept. 11, both in 2002 and 2013, the weather service said.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.