AWN Tropical Update for Sunday Evening July 19, 2026

[00:00:01][music] [music] >> Here's the latest from the tropics.

[00:00:15]>> [music] >> It's Sunday evening, July the 19th. I'm meteorologist Bill Murray from the Alabama Weather Network and here is the latest information on Tropical Depression Number Two. Our tropical cyclone in the northeastern Gulf is basically unchanged tonight on the 10:00 p.m. advisory. And you can see it on the satellite here, very disorganized. A few thunderstorms right near the circulation center near north of the center about 155 miles south-southeast of Panama City tonight.

[00:00:53]Kind of hard to pick out, but the brightest orange there you can see just south of uh uh Cape San Blas and the areas there near Mexico Beach, Apalachicola. That area right there is what we are picking out as the circulation center. The Hurricane Hunters were in there earlier this afternoon and found um a broad low-level center there and top winds about 30 miles an hour on that system. So it's not changing very much at this point. We do have tropical storm watches in effect from the Apalachicola River to the Florida-Alabama border and that's what you see here.

[00:01:45]This is the Apalachicola River back to the Alabama-Florida border including all the Gulf waters here.

[00:01:53]Tropical storm warnings already in effect in blue, Uh but this uh tropical storm watch is this area that you see in yellow tonight. Uh rip current's going to be the problem uh and I think you'll really see these flip over to red uh in all of these areas uh pretty quickly.

[00:02:11]Um especially the uh southerly and easterly facing beaches tomorrow. And then certainly by Tuesday, almost everybody will have a high rip current risk uh as the system continues uh moving to the west. That's going to be one of the biggest threats to the Gulf Coast. Now, let's talk about some factors for strengthening.

[00:02:31]Um the uh water temperatures are warm, 84 to 87° over the northeastern Gulf.

[00:02:37]And really right where it is, it's some of the warmest uh uh seawater temperatures that you'll see uh in the um uh in the entire Atlantic, really. And um that's not good news. So, uh it's got plenty of fuel uh undergoing uh fairly decent shear now, but that shear um will sort of decrease with time uh as the cyclone uh tracks to the west. But then by late Tuesday into Wednesday, the shear will really increase. It is ingesting uh some drier air.

[00:03:10]Um uh if you saw that uh this uh darker uh darker uh shade of green is a little bit drier air, drier air to the north, and then some drier air coming around the uh western side of the cyclone as well.

[00:03:26]Here by tomorrow night at 5:00 p.m.

[00:03:28]Monday night. Um you see some drier air working around the southern side.

[00:03:33]Um and then again some drier air by Tuesday morning working into the western side of the cyclone. And uh that's good news because that will help forestall development as well. But then you see the cyclone begins to sort of get sheared apart by late Tuesday night into Wednesday, and that's really good news.

[00:03:49]Um because um uh you know, it's really going to have a hard time for it uh to to develop past that. This is These are the spaghetti models, and you can see they really look like spaghetti.

[00:04:00]Uh kind of still all over the place, but there's a bit of a consensus there uh carrying the system more to the west toward the mouth of the Mississippi River and the southern coast of Louisiana. And uh that's what we're kind of hanging our hat on here as to uh what to expect. The intensity forecast uh is a fairly consistent. The blue line is the National Hurricane Center forecast. There uh is uh one set of models um some of the Hurricane Center HWRF and HMON carried into the uh category one hurricane intensity, but most of them keep uh the system as a tropical storm. Some of them barely make it a tropical storm at all, and uh some never even get it um you know, much past minimal tropical storm and don't even get it into tropical storm status. So, you know, we'll see how that develops. 10:00, you see uh the system there 28.0 north 85.1 west. That's 155 mi uh south-southeast of Panama City moving north-northwest at three. Central pressure unchanged from the last advisory at 1,008 millibars.

[00:05:07]Top winds 30 mph gusts to 40. Uh by tomorrow morning, we expect winds 35 uh becoming a tropical storm uh during the day tomorrow, and then uh beginning uh to take a more westerly track uh by uh Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.

[00:05:27]Uh they're moving near the Mississippi River uh the mouth of the Mississippi River late Wednesday afternoon, and then a more southerly track uh as we get into um Thursday and uh into the hill country, and that's not good news for them uh here by Friday evening. Uh this is the Baron 3K, uh which I think has a pretty good representation of what might happen here.

[00:05:51]Outer bands by morning will be over the eastern portions of the panhandle, the Forgotten Coast of Florida there.

[00:05:59]Alabama coast though, you know, there'll be some convergence there feeder bands developing during the day all along the Florida panhandle. You might see some tropical storm force gusts eastern portions of the panhandle by late afternoon and tomorrow night maybe into Tuesday morning but mainly just showers and thunderstorms. We may get out of this without ever seeing a wind gust above 25 miles an hour on the Alabama coast. We'll see how that goes. But those showers and thunderstorms die out. You see the system there south of Destin tomorrow night. Most of the showers and thunderstorms are on the southern side.

[00:06:39]So really, you know, if you're expecting very heavy rain, it's not going to be on the shoreward side of this system.

[00:06:47]By Tuesday morning, heavy thunderstorms over the Gulf on the southern side of the system but you see the northern semicircle very dry. More showers and thunderstorms developing in the feeder bands.

[00:06:59]If this is right, one over Mississippi, one over southern Alabama. The center there south of Gulf Shores by a fairly wide distance there Tuesday afternoon and the center south of Mobile Dolphin Island Tuesday night. Moving toward the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Chandeleur Islands, the Mississippi Sound and kind of making a a bee line for the Louisiana Mississippi border as it sort of gets sheared apart with the heaviest rain moving toward New Orleans and falling apart by late Wednesday night. Showers and thunderstorms over central Alabama at that point. Forecast wind speed you see over Alabama.

[00:07:39]These are sustained winds uh during the day on Tuesday begin to pick up a bit over southern Alabama, uh averaging 10 to uh 15 mph, uh begin to approach uh 20 mph in the coastal zone as the cyclone passes to the south late Tuesday night. But, uh again, uh most of the stronger winds stay well offshore. And, um you might see some uh uh 20 mph sustained winds, 20 to 25, maybe 30 mph uh in uh coastal Mobile and Baldwin counties uh during the day on Wednesday as uh the cyclone moves uh near the uh uh mouth of the Pearl River there uh on the Mississippi-Louisiana coast.

[00:08:24]You see, the system's really getting sheared apart and uh and kind of falling apart, but uh no real strong winds uh anywhere uh on the Alabama, even northwest Florida coast. Rainfall outlook over the next 7 days, some pretty decent amounts there uh on that southern side of the uh Florida panhandle there from uh really uh Port St. Joe through Apalachicola, through the Forgotten Coast, where you could see 5 in or more, but widespread uh 2 to 3 in amounts uh from Mobile, well, really from Baldwin County uh all through the panhandle area south of I-10 with uh extremely heavy rains uh over southern Louisiana. Rainfall amounts there could top uh you know, 8 to 10 in in southern Louisiana uh as well. Of course, we're going to be watching it very closely. We have uh a full crews uh on staff, including folks in the field and full crews in studio.

[00:09:26]We didn't have any uh tropical cyclones in the Gulf last year at all for us to cover. And, we're going to be watching this one very closely as tropical depression number two probably becomes tropical storm Bertha tomorrow and makes its way westward tracking south of the Alabama Northwest Florida coast over the next 72 hours. Well, that's tropical weather update here on the Alabama weather network. James will have another tropical update for you around 5:30 on Monday morning. We'll have frequent updates throughout the day Monday and Tuesday into Wednesday as tropical depression number two and future Bertha moves along the Gulf Coast.