Central Florida Hurricane Center 2012

Models aren't agreeing as much today as they did yesterday, but are highlighting an increasing potential for something to spurt over to the Bay of Campeche. Still, it's about an even split; half of the models focus on the Gulf of Tehuantepec, the other half focus on the Bay of Campeche. The Canadian is nothing but persistent, but I think it's persistently out to lunch.

The reason why the models appear to be hinting at this feature moving slightly further northward and toward the Bay of Campeche is the progression of the ridge over the central US toward the east plus the northward movement of the ridge over the NW Caribbean. Previous runs suggested this latter ridge would stay squelched further southward, but now they are latching on to something implied by the ECMWF earlier in the week. This means it's about to get really, really hot across the SE US for the weekend, but it also means that the Bay of Campeche may open up.

The northern Gulf coast is not under threat from anything that gets going unless this feature were to persist in the Bay of Campeche for about a week, which I feel is pretty unlikely. The ridging is going to be too strong and there is no feature on the way that will be nearly strong enough to capture this feature and turn it further northward. Simply put, either the energy is split apart into the EPac and the frontal disturbance extending from a cold-core low near New England into the vicinity of Cuba...or we get a broad area of low pressure somewhere in all of that mess near the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, with competing interests between the Bay of Campeche and the Gulf of Tehuantepec.

I still feel EPac development is more likely than anything; it's highly unlikely that we get both, as any developing disturbance in either basin will likely draw moisture away from and begin to shear apart the other feature. Nevertheless, it's a bit more interesting than before. After last year's Bay of Campeche trio (Bret, Gert, and Jose), I said I wouldn't even dare definitively say "yes" or "no" on something getting going down there; we'll just go with it being an outside possibility as of now. Shear would be a bit too great and dry air a bit too prevalent (plus land influences) to see anything significant there or anywhere.

--------------------
Current Tropical Model Output Plots
(or view them on the main page for any active Atlantic storms!)

Post Extras

Flhurricane.com - Central Florida Hurricane Center : Hurricanes Without the Hype since 1995

NEWS

CURRENT STORMS

COMMUNICATION

STORM DATA

CONTENT

FOLLOW US

ADS