TL;DR: Maybe something will form in the Gulf next week, and maybe it will be a big problem for somebody sometime late next week or the weekend of the 28th. Or not. Who knows. Enjoy your weekend and check back Monday. Unless you are curious or need to waste some time this morning, that’s all you need to know, but if you want the details read on.
NHC has an orange blob of doom indicating a 40% chance of a tropical system of some kind forming in the western Caribbean or southern Gulf of Mexico next week. The big global models have been consistent in a low pressure system of some kind forming in that area around the 25-27th of September, and for a while were consistently being scary with a major hurricane spinning up, but more recently signals have been mixed. GFS has been insisting on spinning up a system, some strong, some weaker, some going over Florida and offshore Georgia, some going in to Texas or the northern Gulf coast. The 00z run this morning is picking on NOLA with a weaker, double-low, somewhat disorganized storm …
But the 06z run that just wrapped up is showing a monster storm in the same place, but 36 hours later …
This indicates two things. First, model to model runs are not consistent yet, and the speed the low moves across the Gulf will be key as to how strong it gets. The Gulf is as usual a fetid bathtub of hot water right now, so there is a lot of potential energy available for a storm if the atmospheric conditions are favorable.
ECM (the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting IFS model) runs hot and cold, this morning the probabilistic runs indicate a low forming, but the main run shows nothing at 00z.
So what does it all mean? Check back Monday. Hopefully by then, as we get in the 5-7 day range the forecasts will have converged more.
The other blobs aren’t anything to worry about, the former Gordon (1 on the NHC map) and AL96 (2), even if they spin up, should stay well offshore and curve north. A couple of weaker storms making landfall in the Pacific.
And of course the major storm over the Israeli attack on Hezbollah using modified commercial equipment, that has been taking up most of my time the last couple of days. While many people are focusing on the innovative nature of the operation, the implications for the global trade and economic system are yet to be seen. The loss of trust in global supply chains may be an unanticipated side effect with long term consequences.
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Loving the TL;DR. Info out with no fluff! Keep up the amazing work!