NorthHillsWx

92L is very clearly organizing this morning with a robust and cohesive flare up of thunderstorms overnight. Organizational trends today will be critical as to whether this system manages to take advantage of the more favorable conditions present before shear increases later in the week. A lot of the weak models keep this thing disorganized for 48 hours whereas the stronger ones really start ramping up by tonight/tomorrow morning

Guidance is pretty stacked towards this becoming a hurricane at some point. Also starting to look like this becomes the dominant system between it and the EPAC storm, which will have some lessening of shear than we were thinking yesterday.

Hurricane models overwhelmingly favor intensification into a hurricane

Hurricane Nate from 2017 is a very similar system to what we have here from upper level setup over the gulf during the same time of year

GFS drives a cat 3 into into Pascagoula

Everywhere but KVAX is back for me!

Now that there’s an invest we will get hurricane models this evening. Overall there’s been a significant uptick overall regarding strength on modeling today tho the AI models are definitely cooking this thing up more than the rest. Despite the overall increase from modeling, intensity ranges for this still include a very sheared lopsided weak system (see Euro). Google seems to really want to develop and move this NE quick which might be out ahead of the modeled shear later in the weekend. That might be a specific trend to watch in terms or timing possibly affecting intensity

On my app (RadarScope) KMOB, KEVX, KEOX, KTLH, and KVAX are all still down

Any idea how long the Gulf radars are expected to be down for? This could be a very bad weekend to not have radar. NWS can still view them but the public cannot.

It is possible. This storm has a runway to attain hurricane status but it not be an ideal environment. There will be westerly shear and dry air impacting the storm to some extent though if this is moving to the NE the shear vector may not be that unfavorable. Also, divergent flow aloft on the east side means this could be a strong, lopsided system. If the surface circulation gets hung up or moves more west it seems (based on ensembles) the shear and dry air win out. At this point we need a center to track before we reach any conclusions on the future environment but it is by no means going to be pristine. We have seen, especially in recent years, storms be able to overcome similar environments while heading NE so I wouldn't write this one off at all even given the look that certainly features westerly shear and continental air impacts at some point. This location is well known for overproducers too this time of year. Will be an interesting week, but at a minimum this looks to be a significant heavy rain event in the deep south and possibly some major drought relief in the Carolinas

One thing to watch is the EPAC cherry. If it becomes strong (like many models are showing) it’s outflow very likely contributes to increased shear in the gulf and could seriously inhibit that system

This one might deserve a thread since it will have at least some level of impact along the gulf coast

The Gulf system has legs

I knew the worst drought areas around the triad were trending down in precipitation but literally to get 0.00” over a large area after a forecast of a widespread 1”+ totals just a couple days out stinks. We have had some rain here but likely ending up <0.40” for the weekend EDIT: heavier shower this morning brought us to 0.41” for the weekend and that looks to be the total

Whatever develops (or doesn’t) in the gulf late week will be the last chance at a hurricane this season