Hurricane Laura is poised to strengthen rapidly and come ashore along the Texas-Louisiana coast as a tree-snapping Category 3 storm, forcing residents to flee their homes despite the threat of COVID-19.

Back-to-back tropical storms pose a combined threat to the U.S. Gulf Coast this week, where more than half of offshore oil production is already shut and residents from Texas to Florida are warily watching the skies.

Isaias could cause $1.5 billion in losses as it picks up speed and strength, likely becoming a hurricane before hitting the Carolinas and posing the second tropical threat to New York in a month.

The hills of the Yucatan Peninsula sapped Tropical Storm Cristobal of some of its power on June 4, but forecasters warn it will likely gain strength as it heads north across the Gulf of Mexico to the U.S coast, where it could bring downpours, high winds and rough surf.

Tropical Storm Cristobal brought heavy rain to southern Mexico June 3, and with a forecast that has it re-entering the Gulf of Mexico within a day, oil-platform workers are already being evacuated.

Don’t be lulled by a quiet June and July, the real Atlantic hurricane season is about to kick off.

The leading edge of Tropical Storm Barry’s wind and rain is reaching Louisiana, where communities including New Orleans are bracing for a downpour that threatens to inundate already-high waterways. Gulf of Mexico operators have shut-in 1.01 million barrels a day of oil production.

The United States has been rocked by 500 tornadoes in the past 30 days with a trapped jet stream in the atmosphere “stuck in neutral,” according to the U.S. Storm Prediction Center.

A potentially record-breaking storm is squeezing the warmth from spring as it brings snow and howling winds across the Great Plains and threatens to flood rivers from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

The deluge that devastated so much of the Midwest over the last week could be a preview for one of the worst years for flooding in the United States, according to federal weather officials.