TL;DR: PTC18 should reach Jamaica as a tropical storm early Tuesday, hit Cuba as a hurricane during the day Wednesday, and be just west of the Florida Keys Thursday before entering the central Gulf of Mexico by the end of the week.
Here are links to NHC’s Key Messages regarding Potential Tropical Cyclone Eighteen (en Español: Mensajes Claves). There are tropical storm warnings up for Jamaica, and watches for the Cayman Islands. Cuba and the Florida Keys are likely to get watches later today …
The storm is forecast to become a mid strength Category 1 storm, which should not be underestimated especially as it comes with heavy rain. Here is the estimated “plain english” impact swath from my TAOS(tm) TC model:
The track is pretty straightforward for the next 3 days, but after that gets pretty fuzzy. We have entered a fall pattern in the Northern Hemisphere so the exact timing of approaching fronts plays a huge role in the track and intensity. The sharp break in the blue lines (the UK and European models) vs. the somewhat straighter tracks from the US GFS, Canadian CMC, and regional models that depend on GFS (purple) reflects an approaching system that turns the storm – or doesn’t get there in time.
This also makes the intensity forecast. Forecasting intensity is harder than direction – especially since you need to know where the storm is going so you know what the conditions are! The current forecast expects conditions in the central gulf to be hostile – that’s why the impact track shows weakening on days 4 and 5. Longer turn, the storm should (if the GFS scenario comes true) approach the Louisiana coast as a weakening tropical storm and be mostly a rain event. But we will have to wait and see and won’t know for a day or two if the left turn happens.
At the moment no significant risk to North Florida, Georgia or our beloved Frogmore Metroplex (Savannah/Hilton Head/Beaufort), maybe some not-excessive-rain from the fringes depending on how the system evolves. Impacts to Florida should be confined to the Keys and maybe the SW corridor south of Tampa, again mostly rain, and if the storm says on the GFS scenario, as noted above should be mostly a rain event on the northern Gulf Coast.
Elsewhere, Tropical Storm Patty is rapidly weakening as it approaches Portugal and Spain (yes, you read that right!).
Hopefully it will not bring more rain to Spain, as anger is growing over the damaging floods and recovery efforts. Crowds have gathered to throw rocks, mud, and eggs at the King and Prime Minister when they visited the region bringing sympathy but, in their view, not a lot of results. Gosh, I certainly hope the people of North Carolina don’t get any ideas about our politicians 😛 . That would be terrible … (Note I’m not advocating violence here, but I think Americans should be a LOT more outraged that our country seems to have the resources to destabilize other countries and send outrageous amounts of money to all sorts of unsavory regimes, but can’t seem to take care of our own.)
Also watching a tropical storm in the Pacific that should develop in to a strong typhoon in the next few days, menacing the Philippines and Taiwan …
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I completely agree with you regarding our governments response to areas devastated by Helene. There are no excuses that are sufficient to explain our government’s minimal, at best, response.