You’ve heard the chatter, an area of disturbed weather by next Wednesday or Thursday in the Bay of Campeche causing tropical trouble for “somewhere” in the Gulf of Mexico.
First, there is nothing there yet and when there is nothing there then the models tend to be all over the place. The American and Euro have generally favored something hugging the Texas coast the end of next week with a landfall around Sabine Pass on Father’s Day weekend, but now things have changed with the American. That said, here is the latest European model:
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The Euro path places a landfalling storm a week from today in southwestern Louisiana. That path keeps the majority of stormy weather off the Texas coast and brings in 5-7″ of rain to Louisiana (which does not need it!). The American model latest run from this evening shows a huge shift with that path to a landfalling storm near New Orleans on Friday before Father’s Day:
Here is a still picture and that 1002 millibars of pressure indicates around a 50 mph storm with heaviest rain and highest surge to the east in Alabama and Florida.
Here’s the where-does-this-go issue -- two high-pressure systems will steer this and where those set up is too early to know. You can see below that the set up this morning favors the Euro path but the American model disagrees. The answer is that wherever the path of least resistance sets up is where any storm that develops will follow:
And as unclear as the answers are today, there is another interesting fly in the ointment:
SAHARAN DUST ARRIVING SOON
Look at this morning’s Saharan Dust -- especially the pink color, but you’ll notice the orange-red all the way into the Caribbean:
I’ve circled where the dust is on the satellite map below and it’s pretty evident that this is a strong plume. It’s also expected to arrive in the Gulf next week, so what will that do to a developing storm? Hinder it.
So the bottom line is that right now the development chance is at only 20% the next five days (and in this case, day five). Any storm developing will fight off dry air to get there (thus the 45 mph strength being fairly low) and where it might go is simply a coin flip at this point. But it’s good reminder that we are in hurricane season, so be ready! We’ll keep you updated on air and on line!
Frank