A growing tropical system, soon to be named Tropical Storm Delta, is becoming a growing risk of becoming a damaging hurricane somewhere along the United States Gulf Coast.
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| Tropical Storm Delta as seen on the left side of this satellite image today |
The exact future track of this storm is still really, really uncertain, thanks in large part to the presence of Tropical Storm Gamma.
Gamma, with top winds of 50 mph, is rather disorganized and is drifting aimlessly in the far southern Gulf of Mexico. This state of affairs looks like it will continue for a few days. There's TONS of uncertainty as to where this one will go, but the consensus for now is Gamma will remain relatively weak.
Meanwhile, newly-formed Tropical Storm Delta was a little southwest of Jamaica today. Unlike Gamma, Delta is heading on a steady course northwestward in the Caribbean Sea and is likely to reach the southern Gulf of Mexico sometime on Wednesday.
From there, things get complicated. Delta is expected, at least for now, to be a hurricane by the time it reaches the southern Gulf of Mexico. It will do a little dance with Gamma, and will probably be temporarily pulled westward or some other odd direction because of Gamma's close proximity.
The early thinking is that Delta will absorb Gamma, then head northward toward the United States Gulf Coast, probably as a hurricane sometime around Friday.
Because of the complicated weather situation I just described, expect a lot of changes to this forecast, both in the forecast path and intensity.
One thing's for sure, the Gulf Coast does not need another hurricane this year. In the summer, Hurricane Hanna hit Texas. Then in August, very strong Hurricane Laura caused a lot of destruction in southwestern Louisiana. More recently, Hurricane Sally trashed the Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida panhandle coast.
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