On one hand, the daunted ECMWF European model has finally backed off on spinning up a storm in the southwest Gulf early next week. It has not abandoned the idea by any means, but is having trouble deciding where the energy might coalesce into a tropical system. Several other models are sticking with something in the southwest Gulf, but remember that only the ECMWF is a 4-D model with temporal, or time based, data input. So it often leads the other models by a few days. Just as we saw with the southwestern Gulf storm idea. So what changed overnight? Nothing really. The next model run may well put the storm right back where the earlier ones did.
But I don’t think so. It appears to me, the saving grace in this scenario might just be former Tropical Storm Grace. Just as the ECMWF originally wanted to spin-up the storm in the southwestern Gulf, the remnants of Grace, now a mass of moisture and energy traveling with a wave of low pressure, will push into the mid-Gulf south of Mobile. Any time you have two potential nexus for storm formation, the models have difficulty discerning which will become dominate and begin to pull in the energy of the other. So my best guess is that the ECMWF is in just such a fix. Which system will dominate?
We don’t know! But with as much pent-up energy as there exists in the Gulf now, it is unlikely this scenario will not try to spin up something. Where is the $64,000 question? Only time will tell. As for all those students at BHS hoping their homecoming blow away next week, this is a positive sign. Much better to have the models guessing than showing a cranked up storm heading right at you. That is not to say there could not be a system somewhere in the Gulf next week just looking for a place to make landfall?
Overall, things are changing in the global atmosphere. The strong El Nino predicted to make this hurricane season a washout has not grown to the monster predicted, but topped out maybe as a half-giant. Sorry for the Potter reference 😉 But all kidding aside, this season is beginning to shape up just like the 2002 season. A strong El Nino early led to just five tropical storms before Sept 10, most of them impacting Atlantic shipping only. Then the El Nino dipped and the floodgates opened. We saw Gustav (the Atlantic one not ours in 200?), Hanna, Isidore, Josephine, Lili and Kyle, three of them hurricanes and two major hurricanes in just the remainder of September. And Hanna, Isidore and Lili all made landfall within 150 miles of Berwick Bay. Is history likely to repeat itself? Not likely. But it does show what can happen when we build energy, in the form of hot sea surface temperatures for months, but inhibit storms to dissipate that energy through El Nino or whatever.
So CajunWX will continue to monitor the Gulf and update you as needed. I doubt expect much of a break. Till then, enjoy the weekend and stay safe.