More Trouble for the Gulf?

Issac may not be done with the Gulf Coast just yet. Over the last week, the remnants of Issac were stationary over the Midwest before a strong cold front pushed the former Hurricane off to the east, resulting in the rainy and humid conditions we saw over the past 2 days.

Interestingly enough, a piece of what was Issac also broke off from the main portion of the storm circulation and moved southeast towards Alabama and has since moved offshore and over the Gulf waters.

Looking at the satellite image above, you can see that this cluster of thunderstorms is not very organized. And in fact, there is significant wind sheer (poison to hurricanes) as well as loads of dry air all around the disturbance. In addition, the passage of Issac last week sucked up a tremendous amount of cold water from lower depths of the Gulf, which has resulted in much cooler surface water temperatures. All of these factors suggests that this former piece of Issac won't develop into much over the next 24 hours or so, but after that, conditions become much more favorable for intensification.

A strong low pressure over the East coast (which will make Saturday a wet one for us) will push this system off to the southwest by the weekend and the NHC anticipates that this is when a tropical depression or even tropical storm will develop. They put that possibility at 40% right now but that percentage is likely to increase.

This storm won't be a big one and certainly not a big wind producer but it does promise to bring another dose of heavy rain to an area that does not need any more precipitation. As of this moment, it looks like the Florida panhandle is under the gun come Sunday into Monday but as with anything in the tropics, the situation bears watching!

Elsewhere in the tropics, Leslie continues to sit and spin southwest of Bermuda. Little intensification or movement is expected over the next 48 hours but once that East Coast disturbance moves off shore by Sunday, Leslie will get a kick in the ass and start accelerating to the north and then to the northeast, making a very close pass to Bermuda as a Cat 1/2 and ultimately making landfall somewhere near Nova Scotia next week.

Hurricane Michael, wayyyyyyy out in the middle of the Atlantic is the first major hurricane of the season. Currently a cat 3 with winds of 115mph, Michale sure looks pretty on satellite imagery but he won't make any threat to land.