(Courtesy of the National Hurricane Center)
Tropical Storm Debby has formed in the Gulf of Mexico around 220 miles S, SE of the mouth of the Mississippi River Delta. While the overall atmospheric and ocean environment becomes more and more favourable, this system looks to have a slow 36 hour journey north, then west for much of next week according to the latest run of the ECMWF, the model the NHC has went with. The model has it tracking west till late week, making landfall somewhere between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, Texas by Thursday or Friday.
Currently supporting 50 mph winds, interestingly the ECMWF a couple of days ago had Debby-to-be heading northeastwards into the Florida Panhandle but now that the model sees the strength and coverage of the ridge building over the Southern Plains to it’s north, the northward track stops in about 36 hours and with the clockwise steering flow around high pressure, pushes the system west.
The trough diving into the Eastern US doesn’t look strong enough to pick up Debby and so the steering flow of the high will determine it’s track. Waters are very warm in the northwest Gulf and it also appears the atmosphere will see little shear during the upcoming week so further strengthening looks likely. It could well become a hurricane within the next 48 hours.
Keep in mind that the slower the movement westward the more it may churn up cooler waters beneath and so strengthening may have it’s limitations.
(Courtesy of ECMWF)
(Courtesy of ECMWF)
More on Debby again tomorrow.
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