TD2 Forecast Discussion July 19, 2026

[00:00:01]Okay. Well, good evening everybody.

[00:00:03]We're going to talk about our system here in the Gulf. That is TD2. You can see here in infrared satellite. It's uh just kind of got some loosely scattered convection here to the west of Florida, maybe a little bit more down here of the southern Gulf. Um not a very well organized system, very weak and in its formative stages at this point. Um if we look at a water vapor satellite, you can kind of see why. um you have this big tongue of dry air coming out off the continent um right into the sort of the core of the system. A lot of continental dryer lurking to the west and even a little bit here from the south. So it doesn't have the most favorable environment to work with. Um and if you look at some of the shear um upper level wind shear from Sims, you can see it's actually in a pocket of fairly favorable shear right now kind of on the lower end, but you can sort of see this this ridge building with this northerly shear and we'll talk about that in a minute.

[00:00:56]So kind of a marginal environment. Um and you know just just a very broad structure too. This is the recon flight from earlier. You can see little bit of uh you know 30 35 knot winds here on the east side. Um but and you know certainly close circulation. So it's it's a tropical cyclone but a very broad and weak one at this point.

[00:01:17]Um if you look at the surface observations um you know you do see that the pressurees come down a little bit.

[00:01:21]Um we see this one buoy is a 109 or so.

[00:01:24]So we have gotten a lower pressure compared to yesterday. You know again we have this sort of broad cyclonic rotation. Uh so you know pretty typical tropical depression um weak weak system.

[00:01:34]You know slowly getting trying to organize a little bit. Probably the one big thing going for it is this above normal water along the shelf of the Gulf here. Um that's providing more fuel for it. So kind of as it moves up to the north and then west it'll sort of ride this area of of higher SST. And so that's probably the one um environmental factor that it really does have going for it.

[00:01:57]If you look at the modeling for this and the forecast, you can see it's it's forecast basically to kind of come up here toward the Florida panhandle and then um been west under that ridge that we'll show in a minute kind of into Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi um or maybe um you know kind of try to sneak along the northern Gulf Coast here and um you know on the right side we have some of the models like we'll show in a minute that kind of bring it up right into the panhandle. So, a little bit tricky with where exactly that turn's going to be and and what that's going to look like. Um, if you look at a couple of different forecasts, this is the HASSB um, operational forecast from 18Z.

[00:02:30]You can see that's one that basically just kind of brings it up into the Florida panhandle basically by, you know, tomorrow night into Tuesday. Um, not a whole lot of of development with it. You can see all the rain still basically out over the Gulf. Just a very weak um, disorganized system. So, certainly plausible given what it looks like right now. Whereas the Hworthf model um is a little bit more organized.

[00:02:52]You know, it's it's still asymmetric.

[00:02:53]You can see um that shear still getting to it, but it shows, you know, strong tropical storm to marginal category one hurricane kind of moving into the uh New Orleans area um in a couple days. And so this is this is also a plausible outcome um sort of maybe a floor and uh you know, one of the higher possibilities.

[00:03:13]If you look at some of the ensemble guidance, particularly the Google Deep Mind, you can see um kind of an interesting um mix of things. You know, on the one hand, it looks like there are a lot of members down here showing a stronger storm um riding along the Gulf Coast toward toward Texas, but if you look, there's actually quite a few that die off up here. this um signal out here is kind of what we call a survivor bias where it looks like there's um a strong signal for this to go west maybe become a hurricane but you if you look think it's a 50 member ensemble and this is maybe you know 10 to 15 so you know something like 20% of the ensemble whereas well over half of them are probably just sort of dying off up here so it's possible that this could um you know get trapped under the ridge and stay over water longer and then certainly if it were to head out here towards Texas um you The environment is not perfect, but you know, if it's able to get its act together, you might be able to see a stronger system or even even a hurricane approaching the Texas coast. You know, we've had some model runs that have done that, but I wouldn't say that's the most likely outcome at this point.

[00:04:15]You know, so looking at that large scale environment that we're going to be dealing with um just to kind of get an idea for what what's going on, you have this big upper ridge um over the western US and sort of this clockwise flow around it. So you can see our system's kind of right here on the edge of it.

[00:04:29]And so it's going to potentially be trapped in that um in that northeast flow and then you know try to come west or maybe west southwest like I said if it stays over water.

[00:04:41]Um but if you look at the um the upper level flow at that it's really not the most favorable. Um you see have in the mid levels you have this area of dry air still coming off the continent um with that that northeast flow. And so you know you have some northeast shear you have the dry air and so at least in halves that keeps it very asymmetric and very weak.

[00:05:01]And if you look at like an area average sounding this is from the GFS which which is finally catching on to development a little bit but not um still not very robust. Again you can kind of see a couple things. You know the shear and the humidity 18 knots of shear is u kind of in that moderate range. 55% humidity again kind of in that you not totally hostile but not very favorable either. we kind of want to see 60% or more probably for you know typically more favorable and if you know you can see it's that shear profile we have the strongest winds kind of in the mid to upper levels here with that that deep layer ridge. So, what what could happen is if the storm is able to intensify more and sort of get some outflow going, you could see um some of that some upper level winds kind of push back on that shear a little bit. And that's probably um these um ensemble runs that get it stronger. You know, if it's able to to do that, to form that core and get its act together a little bit sooner and and stay further south, you might see um something like this happen. But I I wouldn't say it's the most likely scenario at this point.

[00:06:03]just, you know, if you go back and look at our satellite, we've got a lot of just very scattered convection at this point. You know, it doesn't look like it's in a hurry to get it act together.

[00:06:12]I will say one thing with um the shear profile is, you know, we'll have to watch um sometimes you can get these um little tugs to the south with northerly shear as the convection sort of pulls the vortex that way. Vortex draws the line to the south and so you know, as it comes up here toward Louisiana, if that tugs it a little further south, that might give it time over water. Um so that's just something to keep an eye on.

[00:06:32]But like I said, at this point it's not looking like a major threat, but just something you're going to want to keep an eye on. Um certainly if you live here along the coast of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida panhandle, and even in points further west, just just be ready and and listen to the National Hurricane Center um for the latest. So if we go look at their official forecast, you can we'll we'll see what they have. Um they basically show a track here um right along um this the northern Gulf Coast. Um so you you have rain and and maybe some surge um you know as you get that that flow around the the storm. Um it's a very surge prone area and so definitely um have your hurricane plan if you live in a hurricane prone area here. Um but hopefully that this won't get too strong and and we'll be keeping an eye on it throughout the week. So that's all I've got tonight and hope everybody stays safe.