Thursday Evening Tropical Update

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is now tracking two tropical depressions. Once a system becomes designated as a depression, the NHC begins putting a forecast track on the system. Earlier, they had determined the one farther out in the Atlantic was a depression. Today, they have determined that the one in the Caribbean is a depression, too. Both depressions are forecast to enter the Gulf of Mexico and make landfall in the US. Two named storms haven’t been in the Gulf at the same time since 1933 (that was even before we started naming storms!). It’s been so long since this has happened that many of us thought it had never happened before.

One system is forecast to hit Texas/Louisiana and the other is expected to impact Florida. HOWEVER, forecast track and intensity is very uncertain at this time. According to these forecast maps, we would have a tropical storm in the western Gulf and a hurricane in the eastern Gulf Tuesday afternoon. What a wild day that will be if this verifies! Can you imagine how rough those Gulf waters will be?

So, what does this mean for us? It’s hard to say but it’s certainly not out of the question that one or both of these systems could bring us some rain by the middle of next week. If I had to put money on one over the other, I’d say that Texas/Louisiana system has the best shot of swinging up our way. The Florida system may pull to the east too quickly to bring us any rain.

Right now, models tend to want to the strengthen the Florida system into a hurricane. Wind shear may keep the other system a tropical storm. The next names on the list are Kyle and Laura.

There’s a lot to watch and track and I’ll be doing just that! I’ll keep you all posted!