Tropical Depression 2 Briefing 7 19

[00:00:02]This is the weather insights tropical briefing for Sunday, July 19th. I'm meteorologist Scott Pittney along with meteorologist Jeff Lindner. Jeff, we were talking before we started recording and I gave an update just a few hours ago. We were at 60% and boom, we have tropical depression number two. How quickly things change, which is not uncommon for the Gulf of Mexico, especially for this time of the year.

[00:00:24]So, yes, we have tropical depression number two. Now, taking a look at the infrared satellite. I noticed in [clears throat] the other satellite images I was looking at earlier today that this system has got more organized over the last 24 hours. You can see some circulation now and you can see stronger convection on the southern side of it as well as the north side of the system. So broader still a broad system but a little bit more organized.

[00:00:53]And then as we look at the track over the next several days, expected now, what was looking more like a northnorwest track, more of a westerly track, even entering southeast Texas as a tropical storm by Friday morning, 7:00 a.m. Now, that's a long ways out. So certainly a slowm moving system, but this is just the time of the year, especially with this type of system, that everybody along the Gulf Coast, and you see how wide the cone is there.

[00:01:24]Everybody along the G Gulf Coast needs to pay attention to this disturbance or this tropical depression.

[00:01:32]>> Yeah, I think one of the important things to notice here is notice how closely these circles are are aligned.

[00:01:37]So, a lot of slow movement here over the next 24 to 48 hours through about Wednesday morning. And then as high pressure builds here just to the north, that is what's going to result in this turn to the left and an increase in forward speed. So you can see this this system potentially goes from offshore of Alabama on Wednesday morning to landfall in Texas on Friday. So it's going to cover some ground as this high pressure builds to the north. Uh that tends to be a very favorable pattern in the northern Gulf uh for for systems to strengthen.

[00:02:11]Big question here is does this how much land interaction occurs here with southeast Louisiana. If if it's a little bit further south and offshore, and I'll show you some of those models in a minute. Um that potentially is a stronger system. It stays out over the water. If it's more inland or hugs the coast, uh kind of what the forecast shows now, that's probably a mid-range tropical storm for us here on the upper or middle Texas coast. I'm I'm not completely sold. Again, like you mentioned, this is the first track guidance that has come out on this. Um, and you know, anywhere in this cone from northern Louisiana all the way down to the uh Kingsville area needs to be paying attention to this over the next couple of days. I did did want to put on the wind probabilities just to kind of give you an idea of we do have some probabilities here showing up at that Thursday Friday time frame of uh anywhere from 5 to 10% now on the upper Texas coast of tropical storm force winds that's 40 mph or greater and again a lot of this is going to be determined on the on the track of this system along the coast and the strength and so these are probably our two best guidance pieces that we have available to us. In the blue is the Google deep mind guidance and in the orange or red there calling that type of deep red or orange color there is the European ensemble guidance. Uh what's interesting is both of these have been more toward the left this whole time. Uh yesterday some of the models we're still taking this off to the north and the northeast. Um, but the general consensus, especially being on our AI model side, the Google deep mind has been to the left and you can see a lot of these members are kind of right along the coast or offshore and even kind of have this maybe even wests southwest motion here uh in in time and we've seen that before with big high pressure building over uh the southern United States here kind of Atlanta, Nashville, this area back over to Dallas that is going to force the system west once it gets caught under it and it could even turn a little bit west southwest um as it moves across the northern Gulf. So, a lot of uh questions still to be answered, but this is certainly looking like a threat to the upper Texas or middle Texas coast. And this is kind of what we've, you know, I kind of been mentioning is if you look at the dynamic models, our old hurricane forecast models, you can see they're a little bit further to the north along the coastal portions of Louisiana, um inland here over southern Mississippi. But if you look at the AI components here, you have the deep mind.

[00:04:43]Uh you have some of the other AI guidance. You can see they're further to the south. And so this is something that we're going to really have to pay attention to. Again, a lot of these AI models have have performed really well in the last couple of years. So I put some stock into them. I think the hurricane center has gone a little bit south of the consensus uh with its initial forecast out of some of the respect for these AI models. Um, so you know, even down here in the mid coast, Corpus Christi, Kingsville, Madagorta Bay, you need to be paying attention to this, um, as we get into late week. And unfortunately, if it does track a little bit further to the south here, that puts it out over the water in pretty favorable conditions. So, we could be dealing with a stronger system if it goes a little bit further to the south.

[00:05:30]Uh, and lastly, just to kind of talk a little bit about the intensity, again, the intensity is going to be tied very closely to the track. So, if it if it does track along the Louisiana coast, the best we're probably going to do here is a a mid-range tropical storm, you know, 40, 50, 60 mph. Um, but if it does track a little bit further offshore and over these warm waters and light wind shear, uh, we could certainly be talking about a hurricane uh, going in toward the, uh, Texas coast as we get into late this week if it, if it tracks a little bit further to the south. So, you know, the best course of action right now, uh, check the weather once a day. Uh, there's going to be changes. We've seen a lot of changes this morning, obviously. Uh, so there will be some changes. And then second, um, now's the time to start looking at that hurricane plan. uh make sure we have all those supplies stocked, everything you're supposed to do on June 1st, we really need to make sure we have that. Um as we do have a a threat on the Gulf Coast potentially here in Texas and Louisiana as we get in the middle to late week.

[00:06:28]>> Yeah, it's going to feel like a normal July week. It's going to be sunny, less than a 10% chance of rain for the beginning to the middle part of the week. So don't let your guard down just because of the weather, the way it starts off at the beginning of the week.

[00:06:42]You talked about how slow this system's going to move in the first few days, but then when we get toward the middle or end of next week, um there's a lot of question marks with this one. So, keep it right here on Weather Insights and we will keep you informed. Jeff, thank you very much.