AccuWeather forecasters are predicting a high chance of development for a tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico between Sept. 23 and 25. But what are the chances it will make landfall in the U.S.?
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00:00I want to bring in AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter and John, you know, we begin
00:04with this, the decision was made yesterday that we were going to upgrade our risk for
00:11development from a low to immediate.
00:14We made that change in the early morning before AccuWeather early started and then later on
00:19in the morning, we went to a high risk.
00:22As far as I can tell, we are the only known weather source that are going this high for
00:29the risk for development next week.
00:31That's right, we are and we're concerned, we're doing that purposely because we're concerned
00:36that a tropical storm can form in this vicinity and move toward the United States and we're
00:42not going to have many, many days to track it.
00:45Alright, last night you and I were chatting about, you know what, when it comes to forecasting
00:51long range, you have the computer guidance, that's one tool, but the other thing we like
00:55to look at is what does history say and we have such a large database of tropical storms
01:02and hurricanes across the Atlantic Basin.
01:05So what we did is, where we think we're going to get that developing in the Northwest Caribbean,
01:12within 100 nautical miles, what does history tell us that storms that move in that area,
01:19where do they go and you can see all of the results here.
01:23A lot of storms and again, this is for the month of September.
01:26That's right, the thrust of those storms goes into the Gulf of Mexico, the majority, the
01:31wide majority of those storms go into the Gulf and many of them from Louisiana toward
01:35Florida.
01:36So this is one of the tools that we can look at in terms of helping us to hone on those
01:41risk areas and just to be clear, each one of these lines is a tropical storm or hurricane
01:47that approached the coast all the way back to 1850, so there's a long database of those
01:52tropical storms and hurricanes.
01:54Ari and I crunched the numbers this morning, this is what we came up with.
01:57So there it is, where this system is going to form, the majority of the storms, tropical
02:04storms or hurricanes, went to the central Gulf Coast states.
02:07You can see Florida's not too far behind the peninsula, but as you get toward Texas, there
02:13is less.
02:14Keep in mind, this is the entire month of September, John.
02:17I suspect that number in Texas would be lower if we would just combine the storms to late
02:22September.
02:23I think that would be the case as well, and it's also important to point out this is the
02:26historical risk of a landfall.
02:29This is not the risk that we're assessing with this particular situation, but it gives
02:33us a very good indication of what history tells us and climatology tells us.
02:38And notice that central Gulf Coast lights up right away with 38% of the storms going
02:44in that direction, but then also the Florida peninsula, 17%.
02:48This is why for several days here, ahead of all other sources, we have been stressing
02:53that this area between Louisiana and Florida is of greatest concern to us for the storm
02:59that hasn't even developed yet.
03:00It won't develop until later this weekend or early next week down in the Northwest Caribbean
03:05Sea and then move northward.
03:06And also, Bernie, you can see this is why we have not been able to all clear anyone
03:10yet because there still can be some risk even back to Texas.
03:13All right, that's history.
03:15Let's now go to meteorology.
03:16What does meteorology say?
03:18There are two differences.
03:19We showed you what the history tells us, intensification likely, Louisiana to Florida.
03:23John, let's talk about the meteorology, what we are seeing right now in the weather and
03:29as we look forward in the next week.
03:32Several factors that, from a meteorology perspective, we're looking at, that very warm water, all
03:36of them point toward a strengthening storm, and that's what the concern is.
03:41With plenty of moisture and lower wind shear, we're going to talk about those particular
03:46factors.
03:48Let's talk about the warm water first, John.
03:49It's not just warm water here, and this is plenty warm enough.
03:52I mean, we're talking water temperatures in the middle to upper 80s.
03:56These are running four to six, even a little bit higher, degrees above historic average
04:02across much of the Gulf, but it's not right at the surface.
04:05This is what you're looking at to see surface temperature.
04:08It's through a depth of the ocean, and that's the big concern.
04:11That's what we're looking at here.
04:12This is what we call ocean heat content, or also known as fuel in our mind, in terms
04:17of the types of things that can be rocket fuel for a developing tropical storm or hurricane.
04:22Look at this red line, Bernie.
04:24This is all-time records for ocean heat content in the Gulf of Mexico.
04:29That's not good news.
04:31History tells us that these storms like to go toward Florida and Louisiana.
04:35Let's talk about what the pattern looks like next week, middle part of the week.
04:41The trough or dip in the jet stream that starts or kickstarts this process leaves,
04:46but there's another one coming behind it.
04:48It sure is, and this is going to be really the key to the movement of the storm.
04:53Is this dip in the jet stream a little bit further to the south?
04:56Is it a little bit quicker?
04:57That all has ramifications to where this developing storm may want to track.
05:03At this point, we continue to be concerned, as we mentioned, most concerned about Louisiana
05:09toward Florida, with the dip in the jet stream being a little bit faster and a little bit
05:13further east.
05:14It would guide the storm in that direction.
05:16If the jet stream dip is a little bit weaker, Bernie, that's where we start talking about
05:20more concerns for parts of the Texas coastline or even down in Mexico.
05:25Still all options are open at this particular time.
05:28One final word, John.
05:29Why are we giving all of this?
05:31We're trying to give people as much notice as possible.
05:34There's a reason for this.
05:35You may not have a lot of time to prepare for landfall once this forms.
05:41That's an important point, and we want people to be prepared, not scared.
05:45That's very important.
05:46Additional, providing you with what we know that's in our AccuWeather DNA so that you
05:51can make the best decisions and certainly stay with us.
05:54Frequent updates on the AccuWeather network, AccuWeather.com, and the AccuWeather app.
05:59I think as we, Bernie, you and I were talking about, this is an important point to be flexible.
06:03People may need to alter their plans.
06:05This can be a serious hurricane threat into next week.
06:09AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.
06:11John, thanks for joining us here this morning on AccuWeather Early.