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Tropical Development In The Gulf Of Mexico Possible This Week:
I am closely monitoring an area of thunderstorms now embedded deep in the Bay of Campeche. Most of the model guidance continues to forecast that this disturbed weather will develop sometime between Thursday and Saturday. The European model and the GFS model have switched forecasts since yesterday with the European model forecasting a track that takes this system into the Florida Panhandle by Sunday and the GFS model forecasting a track westward into Tampico, Mexico on Monday.

As I mentioned yesterday, I think the westward track may be incorrect given that we have a high pressure ridge over the southwestern United States and a mean deep layer trough of low pressure over the eastern United States.

Based on that, I think we will see a tropical system develop in the Bay of Campeche over the next couple of days and then track northeastward on Friday and Saturday as it strengthens into a tropical storm. This system may then come ashore along the Florida Panhandle on Sunday as a tropical storm.

The NAM model, which actually did quite well with the forecast development of Lee, forecasts that this Bay of Campeche disturbance will develop into a tropical storm by late Wednesday or Thursday. After that, the NAM model forecasts this developing tropical storm to track northeastward by Friday and develop into a hurricane.

This potential development will be watched closely this week and I will keep you all updated.