A quick update with more to follow as needed. Hurricane Hunter aircraft out of Tampa are in Tropical Depression #9 and it appears we now have a tropical storm. Incoming data shows a wide swath of winds at or above 40 knots in the eastern semicircle, which would make the system easily at tropical storm intensity. The system also is more impressive on satellite at midday today. It is definitely an asymmetric system, with most of the winds and weather in the eastern hemisphere. This would mean the heaviest weather would be east of the center right now. But remember this system is still a couple of days out and my become more symmetrical as it intensifies. Best I can see it is stationary or slowly meandering. This normally means steering currents are very weak. Models still develop a trough and bring the system to the northeast, but as I predicted yesterday, they have shifted landfall to the west. Landfall would be between Panama City and Apalachicola under the current model runs. I am not sure we will not come a bit more west yet. And that is if the trough does pick up the storm. If not it could meander for a few days waiting on the next feature. I am leaning toward some movement though and likely to north or northeast, but it is far from a done deal. More on movement and landfall later. Let’s see if we have Hermine by the 4 pm advisory and what its does as far as movement over the next few hours. This has been an odd duck of a system!
UPDATE 01:52 PM CT: An analysis of the radar imagery from the Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate the center is currently drifting slowly north-northwest.