Area Of Disturbed Weather Located Over The Northern Leeward Islands: After lacking any sort of concentrated deep convection for the past several days, an area of disturbed weather located over the northern Leeward Islands is now producing much deeper convection this afternoon and I do think that we’ll eventually see development from this disturbed weather probably by sometime this weekend when its located in the area between the Bahamas and the southeastern Gulf of Mexico.
Analysis of environmental conditions reveals that there is increasing availability of moisture around and out ahead of this area of disturbed weather. Additionally, wind shear values reveals that there are favorable wind shear conditions for development from here on out. While the conditions do look favorable, I think that the development of this disturbed weather will be slow due to this system’s large overall size and some interaction with the Greater Antilles.
The slower this disturbance develops, the further west it’ll likely travel as it will miss an upper level trough of low pressure over the eastern United States causing it to be potential trouble in the Gulf of Mexico. On the other hand, a quicker developing system would be pulled to the north quicker and be more of an East Coast threat.
It seems that all of the model guidance, including the GFS, Canadian, Icon and European models are now showing a system that does get into the eastern Gulf of Mexico by late this weekend. Not only that but the model guidance are now hinting at a scenario where this system stalls somewhere between the Florida Panhandle and northwest Florida (GFS model), coastal Georgia (Canadian model) and across the northern and central Florida Peninsula (European model). Should this happen, it would lead to an extremely heavy rainfall event even if we only see weak development.
Here Are My Thoughts: First of all, I do think that development will be slow to occur over the next few days and because of this, we do have time to watch this disturbance. In fact, it may not be until sometime this weekend when we finally see it develop into a tropical depression.
Given the slower evolution and development of this disturbance due to its large overall size and land interaction with the Greater Antilles, I think that we might be looking at a system that does move into the southeastern and eastern Gulf of Mexico on about Sunday and Monday.
This means that the entire Florida Peninsula and the Florida Panhandle needs to pay extremely close attention to the progress of this disturbance. The change in the model guidance towards a system that stalls over the eastern or northeastern Gulf of Mexico very near Florida is quite concerning as it would mean extreme amounts of rainfall (feet of rain in just a couple of days or so) with a potential very serious flood threat.
Not only that but the fact that the water temperatures across the eastern Gulf of Mexico are extremely warm and the forecast wind shear values are expected to be favorable for development and strengthening. This combination opens up the possibility of a strengthening tropical system very near the coast of the Florida Panhandle and the west coast of Florida.
It goes without saying that I am keeping very close tabs on the progress of this disturbance and I will keep you updated every step of the way.
The next tropical weather discussion will be issued on Thursday.