November 8, 2020
Tropical Storm Eta is current located over central Cuba and is expected to make landfall in the Keys early Monday morning, possibly as a hurricane. After that Eta will move west into the Gulf and then start to drift around midweek as steering currents break down. This is depicted well in the forecast cone which shows a lot of uncertainty after day 3.
After Wednesday things are very uncertain although the general trend brings the storm back into Florida somewhere between Tampa and the Panhandle towards the end of the week or weekend. There is a lot of disagreement with the models so it's difficult to know what will happen. The GFS brings Eta almost to a landfall as a hurricane in Tampa on Friday before taking it back to the west and then back towards the Big Bend as weak tropical storm on Monday. The Euro brings a weak tropical storm into the Panhandle between Apalachicola and Destin on Saturday. The GFS ensembles have several members taking the storm towards the Tampa area but a lot of them in the current run actually take the storm back to the southwest where it dissipates over the Yucatan. The Euro ensembles are fairly well grouped taking the storm into Florida between Apalachicola and Tampa on Friday or Saturday. It is interesting that the operational Euro has consistently shown the storm coming into the Panhandle with the ensembles only showing a few members heading that way, most are farther east. Both the operational Euro and ensembles have been consistent for days, so that is something to consider. For what it's worth the UK also dissipates the storm over the Yucatan on Friday and the Canadian brings a really weak storm into the Big Bend, also on Friday.
The good news is that the intensity trend keeps Eta relatively weak. A hurricane impact on the Gulf Coast isn't impossible, but a tropical storms looks most likely at this time. The HWRF is a bit of an outlier here, it blows the storm up to category 3 strength and then takes a category 1 storm into the Big Bend on Thursday. Even though the HWRF has been a good model this year, this far out and in that much disagreement with the other models I am skeptical. It does give us an idea of what could be possible though. If I had to guess, I'd say Eta will make landfall somewhere between Apalachicola and the Big Bend as a tropical storm on Friday or Saturday. Even though as a whole models have been inconsistent and not in agreement, the most consistent trend brings a tropical storm into the Big Bend. A big caution is that all of this uncertainty kicks in right when we get to the 3-5 day range when forecasting becomes unreliable in all but the best conditions. The recent inconsistency with the GFS ensembles could be that it is picking up on a new steering pattern possibility back to the southwest. That will be something to watch for over the next 24 hours to see if that is a one run anomaly or the start of a trend, especially if the Euro starts to pick up on this.
Looking longer term, may we see a chance for another system to develop in the western Caribbean late next week into the weekend. Model signals aren't overwhelming, but there is enough there to suggest we need to watch for it.
Regarding non-tropical weather, it looks like a front will sweep through most of the Southeast on Wednesday and then stall on Thursday near the coast through most of the weekend. This stalled system is probably one reason the steering for Eta breaks down. We may see a little bit of cooler air with this front, more so for northern AL and TN, but for most of us it looks like our next chance for cool air will around the beginning of the week of the 16th.
That's it for today. Let's keep watching Eta, it may be closer to midweek before we get a good handle on how things will play out. The good news is that I don't think we're looking at a major impact, but there will likely be at least some impacts somewhere along the Gulf Coast.
Have a great Sunday and a good start to the week.
Chris
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