Hurricane Imelda: We are seeing a true Atlantic Fujiwhara interaction occur today between Humberto and Imelda and this is something that you do not see very often. The analysis of both hurricanes show that they seem to be imparting wind shear on each other. With a much weaker Humberto now, it seems that Imelda may end up absorbing part of the circulation of Humberto over the next few days.
Back to Imelda, reconnaissance aircraft have found that the storm has a central barometric pressure of between 980-982 millibars. In addition, peak winds measured by reconnaissance aircraft, are around 75 mph. Because of this, Imelda is now a hurricane.
Imelda is now heading towards the northeast and it is expected that this northeast to east-northeast track will continue for the next few days. It is expected that the relative wind shear over Imelda will fall to very low levels by tomorrow as the hurricane will be moving in the same direction as the upper level winds. Because of this, fairly quick strengthening of Imelda is likely & because of this, the hurricane may be about a Category 2 strength when it passes right over Bermuda on Wednesday night.
Forecast Impacts For Bermuda: A direct hurricane impact from Imelda is expected on the island of Bermuda on Wednesday night as it appears quite possible that the eye of the hurricane will pass right over the island.
This means that tropical storm conditions will develop on Bermuda during Wednesday afternoon. Hurricane conditions with wind gusts of over 100 mph can be expected during Wednesday night with these conditions persisting into part of Thursday morning. Weather conditions will then rapidly improve by late Thursday.
Model Track Forecast:
Satellite Imagery:
Locally Heavy Rain Possible Along The Northern Gulf Coast During This Weekend: Things “might” get a little interesting over the northern Gulf this weekend as some energy from the two hurricanes break off and rotate westward into the Gulf by later this week. This piece of energy is then expected to push northward reaching the northern Gulf during this weekend & is likely to produce locally heavy rain across much of the northern Gulf Coast throughout this weekend.
One thing to note is that there are a few ensemble members of both the GFS model and the European model that do show a low pressure system forming over the northern Gulf at some point this weekend. At this point though, the ensemble guidance only show a 10 percent chance of tropical development, probably due to the presence of lots of dry air in the western Gulf, which could inhibit any sort of development of any low pressure system that forms.
Either way though, rain seems likely to occur this weekend across immediate coastal areas of southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. While it seems possible that a majority of heavy rain may stay offshore, 1 to 4 inches of rain is a possibility across these areas this weekend.
Could There Be Tropical Development Over The Eastern & Central Tropical Atlantic Next Week?: Some of the deterministic and ensemble members of the GFS, European and Google Deep Mind AI models are showing the possibility of a tropical wave that looks to push off of the coast of Africa on Friday to develop as it heads westward across the eastern and central tropical Atlantic next week.
At this point, there are a few members of both the GFS and European ensemble model that show this possible development. Most members that do show development forecast it to reach the area near the northern Leeward Islands around next Thursday and next Friday. It should be pointed out that the European ensemble model guidance does show about a 30 percent chance of tropical development next week over the eastern and central Tropical Atlantic.
For now, this is just something to keep an eye on, but at this point, I don’t think that it’s anything to be overly concerned or worried about if you are in the Leeward Islands or the northeastern Caribbean.
The next tropical weather discussion will be issued on Wednesday.