Developing tropical system may take aim at Gulf Coast
Published 9:12 pm Wednesday, August 25, 2021
The National Hurricane Center has increased the chances for tropical development to 80 percent for the western Caribbean and western Gulf of Mexico late this week and weekend.
“A tropical depression is likely to form late this week over the northwestern Caribbean Sea, and move across the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and into the Gulf of Mexico this weekend, where conditions are expected to be favorable for development,” said Roger Erickson, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Lake Charles office.
Erickson said the system has the potential to become a major hurricane, and could bring dangerous impacts from storm surge, wind, and heavy rainfall to parts of Texas and/or Louisiana early next week.
“As a reminder, weather models rely on good initialization features,” Erickson said. “Since this system is still a tropical wave covering a large region of the Caribbean, there is no low level circulation to point out exactly where this system is. Poor initialization is part of what leads weather models to show a wide variety of landfall scenarios.”
He said resident should monitor the progress of this system and ensure they have their hurricane plan in place.
