The next storm that could threaten the United States was beginning to take shape Monday morning among a swirl of thunderstorms off the shores of Honduras in the western Caribbean Sea, with forecasters saying there is a strong likelihood that it becomes Helene, the next name in the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season storm list.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are currently calling the area Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine and said there was a 90 percent chance this disturbed weather would form into a tropical storm — meaning the storm has winds of 39 miles per hour or higher wrapped around a common point — as it drifts north into the Gulf of Mexico. Many of the forecast models that meteorologists use show the storm strengthening rapidly over the next few days before hitting somewhere along the central to eastern Gulf of Mexico coastline.
This storm follows Francine, which spun across the western Gulf of Mexico this month. That storm struggled to organize and only slowly intensified into a weak Category 2 in the final few hours before making landfall in Louisiana and dropping a deluge of rainfall across New Orleans. If this storm system forms more quickly into a named storm across the Caribbean, it is more likely to become a hurricane or even a major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico before it hits land.
We’re in the early stages of the storm.
Heavy rain will spread across portions of Central America over the next 48 hours as this storm begins to take shape. As the storm passes between Cuba and Mexico it will unleash anywhere from four to eight inches of rain over western Cuba and the Cayman Islands with isolated totals around 12 inches and up to six inches over the Yucatán Peninsula.
Tropical storm warnings were issued for the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico and Western Cuba, which means forecasters expect at the very least tropical stormlike conditions over the next couple of days. A hurricane watch, meaning there is a chance winds could increase to 74 miles per hour or higher, was in effect from Cabo Catoche to Tulum in Mexico and for Pinar del Rio of Cuba.
The likely scenarios as of Monday may change.
On Monday morning the forecasts were becoming clearer among meteorologists, and the most likely scenario showed a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico making landfall along the Florida Panhandle sometime Thursday. Various models moderately agree that this could occur. It isn’t a set-in-stone forecast, and crucial data later in the day will give forecasters a better understanding of the storm’s likely next steps.
“While the spread in potential tracks has lessened compared to this point 24 hours ago, a range of landfall locations from the Florida Panhandle to the Peninsula of Florida are still on the table,” forecasters in Tallahassee, Fla., said Monday morning.
Computer models and the potential paths of a storm are based on where they assume the storm’s center will form. The models will continue to shift until this cluster of thunderstorms starts spinning around a common point.
A hurricane hunter plane is expected to fly through the storm Monday afternoon to understand better where that center might be forming. National Weather Service Offices around the Gulf of Mexico will most likely send extra weather balloon launches to feed data into the forecast models. This data will be pivotal in understanding what is likely to happen. By Tuesday, the models should be more reliable to a degree and the understanding of the storm’s path and possible intensity will probably be more obvious.
Some outlier possibilities could still happen.
Despite much agreement in the computer models, the lack of current data means that forecasters and people along the Gulf Coast should continue to monitor the forecast and not discredit the outliers for now. At least one model suggests that landfall along the west coast of the Florida peninsula is possible. And early Monday morning model runs were all trending a little bit farther east. Another outlier suggests the storm may take a more western path into Alabama.
There is also a small chance that this storm never becomes a hurricane. If the storm encounters dry air like Francine did and is slow to form, it could mean a slower intensity. If the storm forms before reaching the Gulf, the ocean conditions would have enough energy to support rapid strengthening.
The post Storm Begins to Take Shape in the Caribbean appeared first on New York Times.
