First Gulf Storm

Tropical Depression #3 has formed in the Bay of Campeche. It’s expected to wobble around on the western side of Yucatan for the next couple of days and gradually gain strength. But, by the end of the week, TD #3 (which will then likely be Tropical Storm Christobal) will drive north towards across the Gulf of Mexico and towards the U.S. Coast.

Right now, landfall looks like it will be between Houston and New Orleans on Sunday. It’s still several days out, and a lot can change over that time, so we’re really just trying to tell people to start paying attention to this system and make sure you have your hurricane plans and supplies ready.

The animation at the top of this article is the GFS forecast for this system. (We made this animation for you at tropicaltidbits.com). Remember that all computer models are wrong in some way. So, this is not likely to be the exact path this storm takes. We’re showing it to you because it highlights a possible concern. Notice that this model has the storm drifting west just as it hits the coast. The reason for that is there’s an area of high pressure that will travel across the Continental U.S. this week. This model has the timing such that the bubble of high pressure gets due north of Christobal right as the storm hits the coast. That would slow the storm’s northward movement and add an extra 24 hours of drenching rains along the coast. Right now, this strikes us as the biggest potential threat from this system, and people living along the coast need to be prepared for flooding.

Again, this is just one model, and the exact landfall it shows is not likely to be 100% correct at this point. It’s just the ideas behind the model output that we’re trying to highlight.

As the storm moves inland, there is also going to be a risk for quick spin-up tornadoes on the eastern flank of the storm in the outer rain bands.

We are several days away, and we’ll continue to keep you up to date as we get closer to impact.