Tropical development in Gulf, heavy rains on Gulf Coast possible late next week

Our leading models for predicting tropical cyclone genesis are becoming more insistent that a tropical disturbance could develop in the Bay of Campeche toward the latter part of next week, possibly moving into the Gulf of Mexico. The last several sets of GFS ensembles support the idea of tropical or subtropical development in this area, and the 00Z Friday operational runs of the GFS, ECMWF, and UKMET models show potential for least slow, modest development late next week and beyond. The focal point is a sharp cold front that moved across the Gulf of Mexico this week. As the front stalls and slowly returns north as a warm front over the next week, an area of disturbed weather should gradually move from the northwest Caribbean toward the Bay of Campeche, where low pressure of some type may begin to consolidate. In October and November, the most likely areas for Atlantic tropical cyclone formation shift from the open Atlantic to the Caribbean and southern Gulf, so the scenarios painted by the models agree fairly well with climatology. Often these cyclones form along decaying frontal systems pushed into the region by the first large, cool Canadian air masses of the autumn.



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