This small cluster of storms is attracting the attention of meteorologists because both U.S. and European forecast models have consistently shown them developing into a tropical system and entering the Gulf of Mexico — though the models don’t have the best track record of prediction so far. “The fact that almost every computer model out there is developing this into a westward-moving hurricane is absolutely alarming,” CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said.
So growth is likely — but where it goes is still somewhat up for debate.
“Well, there’s a lot of uncertainty right now,” Hurricane Center spokeswoman Maria Torres told CNN on Wednesday. “But yes, it’s something we’re watching and watching closely as we go into the weekend and early next week.” Over the next few days, the disturbance is forecast to move west-northwest to the southern Windward Islands — at the eastern end of the Caribbean — and then move into the central Caribbean Sea later in the week, the hurricane center said Wednesday morning. Late next week, both models show the storm entering the Gulf of Mexico.
On Wednesday morning, the US model showed the storm as a large and possibly major hurricane. It showed landfall in the Florida Panhandle by September 30. The European model had hit southern Florida a day earlier — but as a much smaller, though nearly as intense, storm. By Thursday morning, the pattern had changed. The European model looks more like Wednesday’s US model, more intense and reaching the west coast of Florida. It predicts an even faster storm, meaning it will make landfall on September 29. The updated US model from Thursday morning shows a much slower storm. It has been circling the Gulf of Mexico for days, increasing in size, then arriving in Louisiana on Sunday. Conditions in the Gulf are favorable for the system to strengthen and it will do so very quickly, Torres told CNN. It was a slow start to what was predicted to be an above-average hurricane season. Only one storm made landfall in a US territory, and no hurricanes made landfall or threatened the contiguous United States.
Now, a week after the peak of hurricane season, the tropics appear to have woken up and forecasters worry that people have let their guard down.
“After a slow start, the Atlantic hurricane season has picked up speed,” tweeted Phil Klotzbach, a researcher at Colorado State University. “People tend to let their guard down and think, oh yeah, we’re out of the woods,” Torres said. “But really, the season is still going on. We’re still in September, we’ve still got October ahead of us. Anything that forms over the Atlantic or the Caribbean is something we have to continue to watch very closely.” The Atlantic hurricane season ends on November 30. Four times a day, the US forecast model and the European model spit out an updated forecast. And after each run, forecasters will tweet what they think will happen.
No matter what, if you live in the Caribbean, Florida and other states along the Gulf Coast, pay attention and watch what the National Hurricane Center says once the storm is strong enough to be named. The track it emits at that time will give an increasingly good indication of what is most likely to happen.