System East of Florida is Now Invest 96L

September 11, 2020

I'm only going to talk about the orange system east of Florida this morning, now designated Invest 96L. The National Hurricane Center has increased chances of development to 40% over the next two days and 60% over 5 days, here is part of their statement:

This system is forecast to move westward at about 10 mph, crossing the 
Bahamas and Florida today and tonight and moving into the eastern 
Gulf of Mexico on Saturday.  Upper-level winds are expected to 
become conducive for development, and a tropical depression could 
form while this system moves slowly west-northwestward over the 
eastern Gulf of Mexico this weekend and early next week.

Levi Cowan explained a lot about this system in his video update last night. Computer models still aren't showing much development from it but he said sometimes models can miss systems like this. Now that it is an invest, the hurricane models such as the HWRF and HMON will start looking at it so we'll see what they come up with. The NHC mentions that a tropical depression could form and I think the most we could expect from 96L would be a tropical storm. Interestingly, the Tallahassee NWS office, which covers the Florida Panhandle east through Walton County, only mentions this system due to the increased rain chances it'll bring to the area. They really don't seem too concerned about tropical development from it.

Have a good Friday and a great weekend. I'll keep you posted on how 96L evolves as well as the rest of the tropics.

Chris 

I want to make a correction to yesterday's (9/10/2020) post. Where I said "although the eastern most system will encounter some wind shear.." I meant to say "western." Sorry about that.