TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — The zone of persistent moisture along the western edge of the Caribbean Sea has continued its slow crawl to the north and northwest Friday with no noticeable change in its form.
There won't be any major flare-up with the system over the weekend as it remain a good 1,000 miles or so south of the northern Gulf coastline.
We continue to analyze four important trends through next week:
- The position and strength of a high-pressure system to our north and east
- An upper-level flow that can trigger the development of a low-pressure system within the blob
- The location of the moisture blob, either around or over the Yucatan Peninsula
- The timing and strength of troughs of low pressure from the central U.S. and the cold fronts they carry
Slow movement of the moisture blob can cause it to meander. High-pressure zones early next week can nudge it to the west, placing it around the Yucatan Peninsula. A position over land would hinder its development progress.
An upper wind pattern near the blob can induce lift and prompt a more-concentrated low-pressure circulation to develop within the moisture zone. If the system is over the warm Caribbean or Gulf waters, a strengthening trend would be expected.
High pressure is shown to be positioned nearby or to our east by midweek. This would guide the system generally to the northwest.
The cold fronts swinging east from the Plains can cause the system to have a more northerly course.
There are many unknowns, including precise timing of how these atmospheric features change and how quickly they trigger pattern changes.
The key points for today are that there is no storm present, and no active weather will happen this weekend. But a disturbance of some form — from a rainmaker to a possible hurricane — is expected to be in or near the Gulf next week. By early next week, we'll have a better understanding of the evolution of the pattern and more precision on which areas of the Gulf coast would be more prone to the system's effects.
