Hot Weekend then Brief Cool-Down

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For those of us lucky to live on the Northshore and Coastal MS, we get to experience the first cold front of the season. Technically, the front should come through Sunday night noticeably dropping the humidity for Monday. Then, low to mid 60s for Tuesday AM will be a delight. However, we’re in for just a 36 hour taste of early fall. Until Monday, a hot and humid weekend. Details in the next section.

In the tropics, it’s “wait and see” time. A system in the Main Development Region is likely to become Gabrielle early next week. However, it’s moving as slow as a bowling ball rolled by a toddler. Ever try to predict if any of the pins will fall the second it leaves the child’s hand? You get the point, but I’ll say what I can in “Long-Range Ramblings”.

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The Foreca graphic looks good. You can see the drop off in morning lows for Monday and, especially Tuesday. Afternoon highs will only be 3-4 degrees cooler, so this will make for a large daily range in temperatures for Monday and Tuesday. After that… a slow warm up with humidity back in here.

In terms of rainfall… not much. There’s a remote chance of a piddly shower Saturday afternoon courtesy of upper level trough, but conditions below that upper air system are not conducive for showers reaching that upper trough . The same can be said of the cold frontal passage Sunday night, slight chance of a light shower.

After that, there’s a slightly better chance (but still 20-30%) Tuesday-Thursday afternoon courtesy of a return flow. These showers are more likely on the Southshore and near the I-10/12 corridor rather than further north. I doubt the amounts will be much.

Bottom line: A dry start to September. Time to water the garden.

The visible imagery shows more organization of a feature halfway to Africa (see red arrow) plus a spin (if we could animate it). This could certainly be called a depression tomorrow or Saturday. Notice how small it is. Small systems can intensify rapidly and they can also decay quickly, a bit like a big tornado. It’s far enough south from the African dust so odds favor it developing.

The official NHC map shows an 80% chance of development into Gabrielle within 7 days with a possible track off towards the Leeward Islands. My take is that this could become a small to tiny Cat. 2 hurricane in about 5-6 days and possibly threaten the islands. At that point models disagree and I can’t blame them. Small storms that are not totally formed in the middle of nowhere with no airplane or ship reports near it are a pain to forecast.

The American GFS model takes the storm through the Northern Leewards, the Virgin Islands, and then to the NW. The ECMWF takes it across the southern end of the thatched area as a weak tropical storm and then kills it in the Eastern Caribbean. Either one is possible. Whatever shape Gabrielle is in, it won’t reach as far west as Puerto Rico until 8-10 days from now. The U.S. upper air pattern is uncertain at that time, so I’m not going to speculate beyond what’s shown in the NHC map.

Looking at ECMWF probabilities of a tropical storm, beyond the familiar tracks north of Puerto Rico and off the US East Coast, the long-range model still insists on a chance in the Bay of Campeche, and to lesser extent in the Eastern Gulf in Week 3. However, for what it’s worth, the highest probabilities seem to be bottled up west of the Yucatan and they don’t stream northward with time. Again, all that I can say, is that the Gulf will bear watching in a few more weeks.

Foreca graphic shows a fantastic beach weekend that should extend on into Monday. Too bad most of us have commitments to high school football games, art shows, church, food truck rallies….