A disTurbinece in the Eastern Caribbean continues to garner more attention from the National Hurricane Center as a weak area of low pressure has formed along a tropical wave that is traveling westward. The disTurbinece has potential to become the next tropical storm and perhaps a hurricane. The next named system will be "Mathew".
Short range computer models and environmental conditions support tropical storm development by Thursday while longer range models remain rather murky on the details thereafter. The system is expected to approach Central America by this weekend but the models have been insisting on a stalling system that may get induced northward toward the Gulf of Mexico with time.
Stalling systems in the Western Caribbean could potentially produce life-threatening flooding and that may be a reality as the system possibly interacts with land areas this weekend into early next week.
Meanwhile, a series of cool fronts and stronger high pressure ridging over the central U.S. in the 1-2 week time-frame may contribute to a northward draw of this tropical system but could also force any northward moving system to the northeast, ultimately toward the Florida Peninsula in the first few days of October. This would be potentially good news for us in Acadiana, but perhaps bad news for residents of South Florida.
Climatologically, northward Gulf-bound tropical tracks shift eastward toward Florida as the calender changes to October and this potential system may follow suit. As always, forecasting large and small scale weather systems in the 1-2 week time-frame can change quite drastically so we'll be watching closely how the pattern will evolve over the last days of this month into early October.
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