Gulf of Mexico Tropical Development Likely Next Five Days

Good Saturday afternoon to everyone,

With another cold front moving in today, the local weather is going to be quite calm for a while. One area through that looks to be prime for some development is near the Yucatan Peninsula and the Southwest Gulf of Mexico as one disturbance is already located in that region while another feature off the Texas coast will drift southward. Both features could possibly work in tandem to form a tropical system over the next few days.

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The National Hurricane Center is on board with the idea of a tropical system in the Western Gulf next week. The latest tropical weather outlook, just released minutes ago has increased the odds of development to about 70 percent.

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Global model guidance has also picked up on the tropical development for this upcoming week and is hinting at a system that could impact Texas or possibly Louisiana. Looking at the synoptics for Wednesday morning, a weakness in the height pattern will be located over the Rio Grande along with a trough entering the West Coast of the US. These features should help pull any moisture northward toward the NW Gulf of Mexico, whether it be a designated tropical system or not.

FYI: Next name on the Atlantic hurricane list is Francine.

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If a system does indeed form, we are looking at possible impacts to the Gulf Coast in the Thursday timeframe of next week. By Thursday night our Western US trough will begin moving into the Rockies promoting southwest flow at the steering levels. Any possible tropical feature will be attached to the lower heights located in the mid-south region by that point.

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The ensemble suites are in agreement with a lot of precipitation in the Gulf next week and then pulled northeast into the Southern tier of the country toward the end of the current 7-Day forecast. A tap of some moisture for western North Carolina wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen for us considering it has been dry ever since Debby moved out, nearly a month ago.

We’ll keep an eye on that as we go through the next couple days to see for possible local impacts down the road.