Despite our Super El Niño and historically slow hurricane season, tropical weather is brewing in the southwestern Gulf.
LSU Health New Orleans Climatologist Barry Keim says it's still early to get a bead on this system of low pressure and thunderstorms over the Bay of Campeche, and forecast models vary widely.
"The American model seems to ramp this thing up and takes it right to southeastern Louisiana at this juncture. That could change, of course" he says. "The European model doesn't' develop this quite as much."
Either way, it has good odds for strengthening, and when a storm forms in the gulf, somebody somewhere will feel it. Some forecasts have it becoming a hurricane by Friday.
"It's like a pinball in a pinball machine, right? It's going to collide into something sooner or later," says Keim. "The gulf just isn't that big."
The next storm name on the list is Isaias.
The National Hurricane Center posted, "A tropical depression is likely to form within the next couple of days. The system is expected to drift east-northeastward through the middle portion of the week before turning northward. It is too early to determine specific impacts to the northern Gulf Coast, but interests there should closely monitor the progress of this system."
NHC
