Tropical development in the Gulf of Mexico possible next week

Forecasters watching for slow development of tropical wave

HOUSTON – The National Hurricane Center has upgraded an area of disturbed weather near the Yucatan Peninsula to an 80 percent chance of development over the next five days.

While the overall likelihood of a tropical system directly impacting the southeast Texas coastline remains low, here is the latest information as of Saturday night:

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A broad, unorganized disturbance in the western Caribbean will migrate into the southern and central Gulf of Mexico over the next two to four days. Once it is in the Gulf, it could become more organized, develop a distinct circulation and become a tropical depression or tropical storm.

Both the American and European forecast models are indicating that this disturbance will have a difficult time gaining much strength. The European model predicts that a weak tropical system could impact Mexico by the end of the week. The American model suggests that a tropical low could bring heavy rain to the Florida Panhandle, instead. There is a lot of uncertainty, and we’ll continue to bring in more details as they become available.

Southeast Texas will most likely be shielded from any disturbance that develops, thanks to a strong ridge of high pressure that will continue to hover over the state. Therefore, while you should stay aware the situation, there’s not much of a chance it will have a major impact on our area.

One certainty is that areas between the Western Caribbean and the southern Gulf will begin to get heavy rainfall from this system by the early part of the week. Whether that will translate to higher rain chances for Houston by the end of the week is still uncertain.

Be sure to continue to check Click2Houston.com and Channel 2 for continual updates in the days ahead. The forecast will continue to evolve as we receive new information.  


About the Author:

Meteorologist, craft beer guru, dad to Maya and Ella and a sock and cheese addict.