EXTREME HEAT & HUMIDITY TODAY; TROPICAL DISTURBANCE LIKELY TO MOVE INTO GULF… Heat index values as high as 111-112° will be possible today due to high temperatures in the mid- to upper-90s with ample humidity. Take it slow and easy if you’re going to be outside for an extended period today. Rain chances are a bit lower today but not entirely zero. Isolated showers and thunderstorms will be possible between 1PM and 9PM today but MOST communities will remain simply hot, humid, and dry today. Our focus is increasingly on the tropics today as a tropical disturbance currently located near Puerto Rico is slated to move northwest. Plenty of question marks at this point but it is a system we will need to watch over the next few days.
60% CHANCE OF TROPICAL STORM FORMATION NEAR CUBA, FLORIDA, OR EASTERN GULF… The National Hurricane Center maintains a 60% chance of a tropical storm developing in the vicinity of The Bahamas, Cuba, or the Florida Peninsula over the next 5-7 days. The tropical wave in question is located near Puerto Rico and the eastern part of the Dominican Republic this morning. This system will continue moving west-northwest over the next day or so. By Saturday, the system will be moving into more of a favorable environment for tropical storm formation. It remains too early to speculate what specific areas will have direct local impacts from this system but odds are increasing for direct impact in the Florida Keys this weekend into early next week. I suspect model guidance will struggle on the future path of this system until a low-level circulation center forms. Some guidance has this happening sooner and farther east while many more solutions show the system strengthening in the southeastern Gulf.
LOCAL IMPACTS DISCUSSION – ALABAMA & N.W. FLORIDA… There is no way to know if direct local impacts will happen in Alabama or northwest Florida from this system YET, plain and simple. Could impacts happen? Yes, but there also remains a considerable chance NO impacts happen. As always in these situations, there is a range of outcomes. The best case scenario for our local area is this system remains to our east and we remain on the drier/west side of the storm with little to no direct impact. The reasonable worst case scenario would be if a hurricane formed and stalled close to the coast with the center remaining just offshore with multiple days of significant impacts. Again, that is on the far, worst end of the range of outcomes and possibilities. The truth of what happens is probably somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.
VIRAL SINGLE MODEL RUN IMAGES ARE MISLEADING… Single model runs are not the same as a handcrafted forecast. Think of a forecast as a finalized recipe with models being the many different ingredients in that recipe. What you are seeing in my morning video is a forecast, derived with data from several different models, not just one. Any reputable meteorologist you follow uses multiple, well-known weather models to put together a forecast each day. One model is simply “one ingredient.” The Global Forecast System (GFS) is an American-based model that is run by the U.S. government. The ECMWF model is based in Europe. These models are great, but looking at one model image and passing it off as a forecast is like taking a photo of a raw egg and calling it a birthday cake. An egg is merely one ingredient of a birthday cake. You wouldn’t do that – so please don’t rely on people passing off misleading single model run images. Sharing deterministic single model images on social media for hurricane/tropical data 5 or more days out is not an accepted practice in the professional weather enterprise. Sources engaging in this practice should not be trusted. More info here.
HIGHER RAIN CHANCES THIS WEEKEND LOCALLY… There may be a few, widely scattered thunderstorms this afternoon into this evening but MOST communities across south Alabama and northwest Florida will remain dry. Rain chances will remain a bit deflated, overall, tomorrow. Slightly higher rain chances are in store for Saturday and Sunday. These pop-up storms will not be associated with the tropical system we’re tracking, but instead are typical, pop-up storms of summer that are often initiated by the seabreeze.
APP… Many updates will be posted throughout the day in the RedZone Weather app. redzoneweather.com/app is the link for the free download. Be sure to visit the Alerts tab (bottom right corner) and tap the large “Alert Settings” button to customize the alerts you’d like to receive from me. If you like a lot of info, be sure to toggle ON Low-Level Alerts.
See all the details in your Thursday morning RedZone Weather forecast video. Have a great day!