Tropical threat increasing in Gulf of Mexico

A double-whammy of tropical moisture is expected to bring drenching rainfall to the Gulf Coast this week and may organize into a tropical system.

Transcript

00:00 Well, the Atlantic Basin relatively quiet.

00:02 A couple areas we're watching this tropical wave off the coast of Africa.

00:06 This will likely become a tropical depression or storm.

00:09 We also have this, you know, and we've been talking about this last couple of days.

00:14 We have a frontal boundary, right, that is stalled now across Florida.

00:19 There it goes.

00:20 And anytime you get a boundary, you look for tropical development there, right?

00:24 And just south of there, there's been an area of showers and thunderstorms that we've been

00:28 watching.

00:29 That's been highlighted here on the water vapor loop.

00:31 And again, here's our frontal boundary that stalled from south Texas towards south Florida.

00:36 You look south of there and there's an area of low pressure that's been developing here

00:40 in the Bay of Campeche.

00:42 Nothing that's really organized yet, but I'll tell you what, when you look at the water

00:44 vapor loop, it's in an area and I have it highlighted right now.

00:48 Let me clear everything off here.

00:50 South of 25 degrees north, there's not much wind shear right now and there's a lot of

00:55 moisture.

00:56 There is some drier air, but not a lot.

00:57 So it's got a window, this area of low pressure, until it gets north of 25 degrees north.

01:03 And then you see what's going on here.

01:05 Look at all the winds.

01:06 Look how quickly things are moving from Corpus Christi toward Tampa and off the east coast

01:10 of Florida.

01:11 That's wind shear.

01:12 So once it gets north of 25 degrees north, it does not have a shot to develop.

01:16 So we're going to watch this.

01:17 Its window is closing, but still it's over very warm water and it's got some time.

01:23 I could see how it becomes a depression.

01:25 We'll watch it as it lifts northward.

01:27 Later tonight, during the day on Wednesday, the wind shear is really going to weaken this

01:31 system, although it will be able to produce quite a bit of rain across central and northern

01:35 Florida and that will be the biggest impact.

01:38 Whether this becomes a tropical depression or not, there will be a heavy rain threat

01:41 from the central Gulf Coast states, southern Alabama, southern Georgia and north Florida

01:46 as we get toward Wednesday into Thursday.

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