Tropical Weather Update

May 28, 2022

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. It's time to start watching the tropics a little closer, the NHC is showing a 20% chance of development through 5 days for the southern Gulf. The synopsis is that we may see a tropical system in the Gulf or Caribbean sometime next week. The main threat would be some windy and rainy weather, worse case a tropical storm, for southern or central Florida or Cuba and the Bahamas. Currently there is no threat for the northern Gulf. Read on for more details.

The NHC is tracking the first named storm in the Eastern Pacific, Tropical Storm Agatha. You can see the track below. Agatha will make landfall in southern Mexico as perhaps a category 2 hurricane on Monday. 

The storm's remnants will then cross Mexico/Central America and enter the Bay of Campeche or western Caribbean sometime around the middle to the end of next week. There is enough heat in the water to support development but right now chances for significant development look pretty low. Wind shear (which is detrimental to tropical cyclone formation) is forecast to be fairly strong during this time. Models are not agreeing on a solution at this point. The Euro has an east-weighted storm developing in the Bay of Campeche or Yucatan Channel around Thursday or Friday with it then moving ashore, maybe as a tropical storm, somewhere along the Central or Southern Florida Gulf Coast Sunday or Monday. The GFS's solution is a bit more complicated. It has the remnants of Agatha kick starting a Central American Gyre (CAG). The CAG is a broad area of rotation that can form this time of year over Central America. CAGs can sometimes provide the seed needed to start tropical development. To be honest I'm not sure if the remnants of a storm can start a CAG or if it is due to some other influence. Nonetheless, the GFS shows a CAG forming and spitting out a tropical system south of Cuba Thursday or Friday with a tropical storm then moving off to the northeast across Cuba and the Bahamas. The Euro and GFS ensemble members largely agree with the operational models. For what it's worth the Canadian model and its ensembles are in agreement with the Euro. Despite this agreement it is too soon to tell what if anything may happen. 

Bottom line is we're looking at tropical storm strength at the most and at this point I'd say a tropical depression or some kind of messy low pressure is more likely. Again, the northern Gulf is not at risk at all at this point. This is probably too many words for something that is most likely going to be a rainmaker for places to our south, but I know any kind of tropical activity in the Gulf tends to cause excitement.

Enjoy the rest of the Memorial Day weekend, don't forget to take a moment and remember what the day is for. We'll start to get a clearer picture around midweek. Once this system is out of the picture there are some hints that there may be something else to watch around the first full week of June.

Chris