August 3, 2024
Taking a look at Tropical Depression Four this morning, the forecast has thankfully been consistent for a while now. Future Debby is expected to make landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida late Sunday or early Monday. The official forecast is for the storm to be nearing hurricane strength at landfall, but I think there is some room for that to increase a little bit as there is not much to inhibit strengthening other than its passage over Cuba and relatively fast transit over the Gulf.
Based on the way things looked a few days ago I honestly did not think we'd have a high confidence forecast this morning but thankfully we do. There were a few slight westward adjustments overnight due to the storm being located a bit to the south of the expected track, but I think that has settled out now. The storm has started its northerly turn and there is no reason to think that it will not continue to do so. Models are and have been in good agreement on a track towards the Big Bend for a while now. For what it's worth, the Canadian model is a bit more towards the west, over near Apalachicola, but I think it is an outlier. I will say that future Debby's future once it crosses Florida is much less certain, but as of right now I don't expect any further impacts to the Western Panhandle once it leaves the Gulf.
Barring any big changes, this will be my last update on this storm, but if you have any questions please ask. In a few days we will need to turn our attention again to the deep tropics. There is a robust tropical wave approaching the Windward Islands that is showing signals for development once it is in the Caribbean later this week. More to come.
Keep an eye on this storm just in case, but otherwise enjoy the weekend.
Chris
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