A few days ago a couple of members were inquiring about the western GOM. At that time, upper-level winds were far too hostile over far too large a portion of the entire GOM to allow almost anything to get started anywhere in that region. Additionally, there were simply no real surface features to try to spin up, or kick start.

This may now be changing, at least for a small window of duration.

The following only applies to the southwestern Gulf in general, and particularly, in and around the Bay of Campeche:

Over the course of the past 12-24 hours shear has been relaxing some over the extreme southwestern Gulf. Courtesy the extreme eastern Pacific, which has come on fire again and again lately, some potentially favorable anti-cyclonic flow has been crossing over, into this region. Measures of mid to upper-level moisture content (chiefly, cloud-cleared water vapor brightness temperature) suggest this precondition is now actually very supportive. Vertical instability has also gone up, and is now quite supportive of any possible development prospects in the southwestern GOM. SSTs down there are pretty much always plenty supportive of TC genesis this time of year. Finally, there might now be enough of a surface feature to try to avail itself of the much-improvement environment, as an area of low pressure may currently be forming in the BOC.

All of the above actually adds up to an area worth keeping an eye on, at least until these now rather genesis-friendly conditions turn again, for the *potential* for something to try to get going. At the moment, I would say that the odds of development in the BOC over the next 48 hours are still very low, only because there is not yet an actual disturbance over water to hang my hat on. But, this could change.