6.22.12 A Little Tropical Action? - FOX44 - Burlington / Plattsburgh News, Weather & Sports

6.22.12 A Little Tropical Action?

As of Friday evening, I was just poking around the weather models and noticed a feature spinning away near the Gulf of Mexico. Took a glance over at the National Hurricane Center website, and sure enough, it's an area of high potential for tropical development. As of Friday evening, the area "in question" of becoming a tropical system is pictured here (hatched in red). The NHC gives this an 80% chance of tropical development within the next 48 hours..that's pretty good.

So I started to poke around the weather models some more to see where this system will go. Tricky placement, as it could ride in 2 entirely opposite directions. One reliable weather model, called the GFS, is an odd man out. BUT, I'm interested in this odd man for where it takes the system. If this model were to verify, the potential system (that would be named Debby) would get caught up in a large atmospheric trough which will be setting up across the eastern US. If this happens, "so-called Debby" would be carried up through Florida, bringing soaking rains, and then eventually out into the Atlantic Ocean, and eventually through Nova Scotia, Canada with tropical downpours there, too.

This GFS model contradicts many other reliable models, which mostly agree on the system tracking to the west-northwest, and getting caught under an atmospheric ridge over the central and south-central US. In this scenario, the system would tend to strengthen much moreso, and it would bring soaking tropical rain to parts of Texas. The NAM, CMC, and UK model all side in this direction.   

Let's give this one a little more time to form. Both photos above show the placement of the system in the 3 day period (aka Monday evening).