Models are pretty consistent in terms of *something* down that way and truthfully have been for a few days now. As HF might point out, it fits the Joe Bastardi test of lower pressures across the region. The MJO (upper level wind fields) are somewhat favorable for this time of year as well from the perspective of getting deep convective development. What is there now is sorta in a "bubble" region, i.e. if it goes too far in any direction it either hits less favorable winds or land.

I do urge a little caution with this, however, in particular if the GFS is used with respect to any developments down there. At the start of May, some changes were made to the GFS to hopefully improve its prediction with the formation and intensification (representation) of tropical systems. Unfortunately, it appears that these changes have gone too far and have returned the model to the days of the late 1990s where *everything* coming off of Africa became a tropical system. (Anyone else remember those days?

) Skill scores for the model in the 5-10 day time period, a measure of how well the model verifies, have dropped dramatically since the new GFS code was implemented -- partially due to negative feedbacks from the tropics, I feel.

That said -- there is some support for this in the actual observations and from the other models, so it bears watching. Yesterday's 12z and today's 00z runs of the European model seem to want to feed this energy into the Gulf of Mexico in 6 days' time or so and then into Florida and the southeast as a rain storm associated with a non-tropical area of low pressure. It's a setup more common of February-March than early June, but it's also a setup that can help bust a drought...and one that if there is something tropical out there beforehand could be a more significant event. Tropical or not, it all bears watching over the next week.