Watching the Gulf Blob (Tue 16 June)

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Update: NHC has started advisories on the system as PTC1 as of 11am ET/10am CT.

There is a disturbance over Mexico that is drifting northeast towards the Texas coast. It should enter the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America according to the USG) later today before drifting back over land. During that brief window over water (< 24 hours) it might develop enough tropical characteristics for NHC to start tracking it as a depression or even tropical storm. Here’s the IR view from this morning (the sun isn’t up over West Texas yet):

Satellite image showing infrared brightness temperature over the Gulf Coast, highlighting storm patterns with varying colors representing temperature differences.
click any image to embiggen.

From this you can see the extensive high/cold cloud cover, and maybe some attempt at banding inland, but it’s still an elongated trough without a clear center. Here’s the radar view at 7:30am …

Weather radar map showing low-level reflectivity over Texas, highlighting precipitation areas along the coastal region near Corpus Christi and Brownsville on June 16, 2026.

Conditions are only marginal for development, but it’s likely that NHC will raise tropical storm watches or warnings later today. Here is the official Key Messages for Disturbance Over the Northwestern Gulf of America link. As NHC notes, this is likely a heavy rain and gusty wind event. There are already flash flood watches up for a broad swath on the Gulf coast due to the rain ahead of the system …

Map displaying current NWS watches and warnings across the United States, including various weather hazards such as flood, tornado, hurricane, and fire warnings. Key locations and advisories are marked for each region.

For a system this disorganized, tracking is a bit iffy. For what it’s worth (very little – the entire northwestern Gulf coast will get rain and gusty winds of some kind), here are the current model runs. Notice the table for accuracy is blank – nothing to lock on to yet.

Satellite image showing the projected track models for INVEST AL90 over the southeastern United States and northern Mexico, with various colored lines indicating different forecasting models.

Will post an update if/when NHC issues the first advisories.

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