Watching the Gulf Again; Humberto Over Open Waters

Tropical Storm Humberto remains around 1,000 miles to the west-southwest of the Azores. Satellite imagery continues to show a fairly disorganized system with most of the thunderstorms to the east of the low-level center of circulation. This system will have a window over the next 24 hours or so to strengthen somewhat as shear lessens and it remains over ocean waters that are just warm enough to support tropical development as it moves off to the north.

Eventually, Humberto will be picked up by a cold front approaching from the west and very quickly accelerate off to the northeast by Friday and Friday night into cooler waters and it will transition to a non-tropical low pressure center by Saturday morning. We do not expect Humberto to impact any land masses over the next five days as it will remain well northwest of the Azores, making its closest pass to the islands Friday evening.

Aside from Humberto, we are watching an area of surface low pressure that is currently moving across the southern Yucatan Peninsula that is producing a large and disorganized swath of drenching showers and thunderstorms. An Air Force Hurricane Hunter Aircraft is scheduled to investigate this system later today if it becomes necessary to gather more information and data on it. This area of disturbed weather will move into the Bay of Campeche later today and then continue to slowly drift westward across the bay and into the southern Gulf of Mexico a few hundred miles to the southeast of Brownsville, Texas by Friday.

The low will be in an environment of low shear and warm waters, so we do expect it to become a tropical depression or even tropical storm over the next day or so. This system will then stall in the Gulf on Friday as an upper level system and cold front move into east and south Texas. If the upper level system extends far enough to the south it should draw this system north then northeast Friday night and Saturday. If this happens the system could move into the northern Gulf coast later Saturday or Saturday night as a tropical storm.

Another possible scenario is for the upper level system to bypass this developing tropical system. If this were to happen the system would be left to drift east then northeast slowly and then move towards Florida next week. Since there is a lot of uncertainty in the development and movement of this low pressure area we are urging all interests in and around the Gulf of Mexico to monitor the progress of this feature.

Elsewhere across the basin, no tropical development is expected in the next 24 to 48 hours.