UPDATE: At 11am NHC started advisories on Tropical Depression 14, which formed out of Invest AL92. The discussion below still applies, will do a big update Sunday morning unless something changes radically. There are no watches or warnings in effect as of noon Saturday.
The models solutions for the blob in the Gulf have come in to better alignment, and it’s not great news for Central Florida. NHC now has their “magic words” in the outlook: Interests on the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, the Florida Peninsula, the Florida Keys, and the northwestern Bahamas should monitor the progress of this system. So if you are in those areas, that’s what you should do – monitor, and make sure your hurricane plans are ready to implement. Here is an IR loop of overnight development of the system, now located in the Bay of Campeche:
First, to be clear about one thing, the present major forecast tracks do not impact the majority of areas hit by Helene (especially north of the GA/FL border), and aren’t likely to (although areas of the Gulf Coast might see some rain bands). Here are the primary model tracks as of this morning:
The GFS runs have been pretty consistent over the last day with at least a tropical storm making landfall somewhere between Tampa and the Keys. The last two runs have shown something like a strong Category Two event:
This particular track would be a dangerous one, and a major disaster economically as this track is nearly perfect to push a lot of water up Tampa Bay, but most of the scenarios are a bit further south, and at this stage this is probably close to a worst case scenario. The European Centre Model hasn’t been so consistent, but the latest run does so a tropical-storm like structure off of Tampa. In any event, this could shape up to be another Florida storm with a landfall the middle of next week, so those in Florida should pay attention in case this does spin up.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Kirk, followed by his crewman Mr. Leslie, continue to churn across the far pelagic realms. Kirk is making waves as usual, sending large swells across the ocean. These swells should be reaching the Eastern facing beaches of the northern Caribbean and US, and there are rip current advisories on most of the beaches in GA and SC so be careful. There is another disturbance behind Leslie, but will probably follow a similar offshore track.
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Any thoughts on Milton?