For a week now, we’ve been watching the potential of a Caribbean cloud or two to develop into a monster Gulf hurricane -- one that by the American model threatened anywhere from Destin, Florida, to New Orleans to Houston to Corpus and, as of Friday and the weekend, Mexico. Here is the Friday forecast with that big storm moving in just south of Brownsville over Labor Day weekend:
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However, nothing ever really formed in the Caribbean and the longer we watched it the more nothing got going. I’ve talked about modelcanes before right here and that seems to be what we had here -- although modelcanes are a LOT more concerning in the height of hurricane season than in early June! The likelihood of one of these storms actually forming in August or September is much greater due to lower wind shear and higher water temperatures!
Today’s American model has the Gulf of Mexico modelcane completely gone, although you’ll notice a strong Pacific storm and one in the middle of the Atlantic:
To wit, the European model NEVER showed any development in the Gulf the past week and today’s run is right on par with that forecast:
I don’t think this makes a case that the Euro is better than the American, by the way, but rather illustrates why we always look at both models for consistency and show you both on our weathercasts. When they are not in agreement, then a major storm forecast is suspect. For what it’s worth, the ICON (from Germany), the Canadian model and the Japanese model were all showing nothing as well. However, this afternoon the National Hurricane Center outlook is still monitoring the northwest Caribbean for possible development, although they’ve take the chance down from 20% to 10% the next five days:
Saying all that, this is the season and we can get spin-ups quickly, so don’t let your guard down. Never turn your back on the Gulf!
Frank