Hurricane Isaias continued its trek toward the United States on Thursday, hours after the National Hurricane Center upgraded it to hurricane status at 11:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday — less than 20 hours after it had become a tropical storm. As of 8 a.m. ET Thursday, the storm was centered about 385 miles south-southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River and moving east-northeast at 9 mph, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph, making it a Category 1 storm.
Forecasters expect Isaias to intensify further as it crosses the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The hurricane center projects the storm will peak as a Category 2 hurricane with winds near 110 mph on Friday morning — just short of a major hurricane — and warns that it will remain a dangerous storm through landfall. "Isaias is expected to remain a dangerous hurricane through landfall, and gusty winds are expected well inland after landfall," the agency said in its Thursday morning forecast discussion.
The latest forecast places landfall on Friday evening somewhere along a 130-mile stretch between Gautier, Mississippi, and Miramar Beach, Florida, centered near Orange Beach, Alabama. Hurricane warnings — meaning hurricane conditions are expected — are in effect from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to the Bay/Gulf County line in Florida, and storm surge, flood and high-wind watches stretch across more than 400 miles of coastline from southeastern Louisiana to the Florida coast south of Tallahassee.
Governors on both sides of the expected landfall zone declared emergencies ahead of the storm. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order establishing a state of emergency for 25 counties from Escambia to Baker, urging residents to finalize disaster plans and stock hurricane supply kits. In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey declared a state of emergency for 40 counties, warning of property damage and danger to residents. More than a dozen Florida school districts closed schools for Thursday and Friday, and the storm is disrupting high school and college football schedules across both states.
The National Hurricane Center says preparations in the warning areas should be "rushed to completion today." The Gulf Coast is expected to receive 3 to 7 inches of rain starting Friday and into the weekend, with localized totals up to 10 inches from southeastern Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle — raising the threat of flash and urban flooding. The Southeast and Tennessee Valley could see 1 to 3 inches, with up to 5 inches in places, as the storm pushes inland.
The storm also threatens Gulf energy infrastructure. Isaias is forecast to pass through areas of significant offshore oil and gas production and onshore refining, and consulting firm Earth Science Associates estimates about 11.2 million barrels of oil production could be lost across the Gulf during the storm — well above the 7.1 million barrels disrupted by Tropical Storm Bertha in July.
Isaias is the first Atlantic hurricane to threaten the United States since Hurricane Milton in 2024, and its arrival underscores just how unusual the 2026 season has been. Meteorologists credit a powerful El Niño with shearing apart would-be storms in the Atlantic, along with Saharan dust, dry air and an Ethiopian drought that choked off the thunderstorm clusters that normally travel across the ocean and develop into hurricanes, according to retired hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart. The Pacific, meanwhile, has been unusually busy: at least 21 named storms have formed there this year, including Tropical Storm Simon, which formed off the coast of Mexico on Oct. 7.
The name Isaias has appeared before. In 2020, an earlier Hurricane Isaias skirted the southeastern U.S. coast and made landfall at Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, killing 17 people in the U.S. and Caribbean, spawning 39 confirmed tornadoes across eight states, and causing an estimated $4.8 billion in damage — making it the third-costliest storm whose name was never retired.
Forecasters say the storm will dramatically weaken after coming ashore, moving north into Alabama, western Tennessee and Kentucky as a post-tropical depression by Sunday. But first, officials stress, it will be a significant hurricane at the coast: the National Weather Service office in Mobile said Wednesday it was looking "more likely" that Isaias would be a significant storm at landfall and urged residents to prepare now. It is the second major storm to threaten the U.S. coastline in recent weeks, following the nor'easter that killed one person and knocked out power to 100,000 on the East Coast late last month.