Tropics Wake Up

Tropical Storm Chantal formed last night interrupting our "quiet" last few weeks of tropical activity.

You can see the satellite pic below doesn't show strong organization, but the National Hurricane Center spotted a circulation and thus the upgrade. Chantal is racing East at 20mph with weak 40mph winds and will eventually loop around over cooler water and wither away:

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Clearly, only shipping lanes will be affected...a Fish Storm. There is another area NHC has an eye on near the Bahamas:

The good news there is that the chance to develop the next 5 days is only 20% and the forecast cone stays out of the Gulf:

What's interesting is that these are BOTH Atlantic issues, not Gulf issues, and in years where hurricanes got a late start in the season we generally see that trend---a lot of hurricanes end up forming over the Atlantic. They don't always stay there and so while we certainly shouldn't relax just yet, the next couple of weeks don't show any tropical trouble for the Gulf and the closer we get to October without anything showing up, the better!

There is a bit of tropical moisture from the Caribbean heading this way Friday-Sunday bringing rain chances up as high as 50%. Our forecast is here.

It's Hump Day! Enjoy!

Frank


About the Author:

KPRC 2's chief meteorologist with four decades of experience forecasting Houston's weather.