Tropical Development Likely With Little to No Impacts Expected West of Apalachicola

November 6, 2022

The National Hurricane Center continues to monitor an area of low pressure in the Atlantic for development. Designated Invest 98L and currently located northwest of Puerto Rico, this system has a 90% chance of development over the next 5 days. More info below the bottom line you need to know is that I don't foresee significant impacts west of Apalachicola.

Getting to the details models are waffling on how far west the storm may track but I'm fairly confident it will stay east of Apalachicola. The GFS and Euro ensemble plots below provide a good picture of the current track uncertainty. Regarding intensity the GFS has been bullish on a stronger storm while the Euro has kept this system broad and weak. It remains to be seen whether this will be a tropical or subtropical system although I think a tropical storm is most likely at this point. In this case a subtropical storm would be larger (better chance of rain to the west) but less intense whereas a tropical storm would be smaller and likely a bit more intense. While a storm of category 1 strength (both for the Bahamas/Florida East Coast and the west coast of Florida) is certainly possible, right now tropical storm strength seems more likely as a maximum intensity. Now that this system is an invest we'll get more and better model solutions over the next few days that will help narrow the uncertainty. We also have plenty of time to watch, if this storm does enter the eastern Gulf it will not be until late this week.

Other than the potential impacts from this system discussed above there is basically no rain in the forecast through next weekend. On Friday and Saturday a rainless cold front will move through with some colder air behind it. While we will not see the same impacts that the Midwest will, we should get several days of below average temps. Unfortunately rain chances look to be below average. You can see this in the 6-10 day and 8-14 day outlooks below.

That's all for today. There may or may not be another update in a few days on the tropical system depending on how far west it looks to be going.

Have a great week.

Chris