A potential tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico could form and make landfall in Texas or Mexico before Erin even threatens land.
While one hurricane hunter flight on Thursday afternoon was en route to the middle of the Atlantic to investigate Erin, another zoomed through a cluster of thunderstorms in the western Gulf of Mexico. While the storm isn’t yet strong or even organized into a tropical storm structure, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center believe there is at least a medium chance it could form into a named storm.
If it did, it would be called Fernand, the sixth named storm of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season.
The most likely scenario, forecasters said, is that the storm becomes a tropical depression, which means it begins to create a structure similar to a tropical storm but its winds don’t reach the 39 miles per hour that would qualify it as a tropical storm.
Regardless of whether this cluster of rainstorms turns into a depression or even into Fernand, it is likely to bring heavy rainfall to portions of Texas.
In early July, Barry formed into a tropical storm and quickly accelerated into the eastern coast of Mexico, making landfall the same day it formed. The same thing could happen on Friday as this cluster of storms moves toward Texas or Mexico.
Although Barry wasn’t strong and departed quickly, the influx of tropical moisture from the storm helped intensify the heavy rainfall that lead to devastating floods in Central Texas on July 4 that left more than 130 people dead.
This storm isn’t expected to bring that kind of rain, but it could cause some flooding in southeast Texas on Friday. “Any further intensification of this system will increase the rainfall threat across Deep South Texas,” forecasters with the Weather Prediction Center said. The “greatest vulnerability” for heavy rainfall, they said, is likely to be in the urban areas around Brownsville and McAllen.
Judson Jones is a meteorologist and reporter for The Times who forecasts and covers extreme weather.
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