Odds increasing of Gulf storm this weekend

Surface wind streamlines as of Wednesday morning. Two circulation centers are apparent: one on each side of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. (earth.nullschool.net)

Since yesterday's update, the disturbance over central America has drifted into the southern Bay of Campeche.  It's still disorganized, and is really close to another disturbance on the Pacific side of the low-lying 130-mile-wide Isthmus of Tehuantepec!  This has been a feature of interest going back to last *Thursday* when it was a disorganized blob off the east coast of Nicaragua.  These things can take a long time to cook (remember watching Michael for about a week last year before it became a Depression?).  While it could end up near where Michael made landfall last October, there are zero indications that this will intensify much.

The most recent European model ensemble indicates a pretty decent chance of this developing in the coming days as it heads north to northeast. Some of the ensemble members have a trackable low pressure center near the northern Gulf coast on Saturday, but none are strong (shown here).  If this becomes a tropical storm, the next name on the list is Nestor.  Nestor was introduced to this list in 2013 after Noel '07 was retired.

As I shared yesterday, there's a short list of seven named storms that developed in the western Gulf of Mexico after October 1 since 1960.  The one that took off toward the northeast into Florida's Big Bend region was Josephine in 1996.

Tropical Depression 15, the one that was way out by Cabo Verde, has dissipated and never reached tropical storm status and so was never named.

As of today, the Atlantic has had 13 named storms, 5 of which became hurricanes, and 3 of those became major hurricanes (Category 3+).  I whipped up a seasonal tracking map through today to refresh your memories on when and where things happened.

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