Kirk was upgraded to the season's 7th hurricane on Tuesday afternoon, and Invest 91L which is trailing right behind it was upgraded to Tropical Depression 13 on Wednesday morning. The setup for development in the western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico is still messy and uncertain. The next couple of names on the list are Leslie and Milton (Milton is a new name, replacing Michael from the 2018 season).
Kirk is forecast to become a very large and intense hurricane in the coming days, but will remain in the central Atlantic for the next five days or so. As of Wednesday at 11am EDT, it's still a Category 1 hurricane but could easily reach Category 4 intensity (and possibly 5) over the weekend, far from land.
Something the long-range models are beginning to indicate more consistently is the potential for a significant impact in the British Isles in the middle of next week. This will have to be watched closely... it's not unheard of to have an ex-hurricane reach that area (it may not technically be classified as a hurricane anymore, but it could be a hurricane-strength extratropical cyclone)... the best analog to Kirk in recent memory is Lorenzo in 2019.
Also over the course of the coming week, a lot of ocean swell energy emanating from Kirk should begin to reach the U.S. east coast this weekend, resulting in elevated risks of tidal flooding and erosion. The animation below shows a 8-day forecast of "significant wave height", and you can clearly see Kirk in the middle but its influence on the ocean will span thousands of miles. By the end of the loop, ominously huge waves approach the British Isles. Kirk is not a storm we will want to ignore.
Just east of Kirk is Tropical Depression 13, which will undoubtedly soon become the season's 12th named storm, Leslie. Compared to yesterday (when it was still Invest 91L), the track guidance is showing even less of a threat to the Windward Islands, with nearly all global model ensembles now showing a north turn well before reaching the Windwards. This example is from the GFS' ensemble.
Finally, the disturbance we've been watching in the western Caribbean continues to fester and challenge models to lock onto anything. The NHC is still giving it a 40% probability of formation in the coming week... somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. The two panels here show the latest GFS (left) and EMCWF (right) track ensembles, and it's a mess. *IF* a coherent tropical cyclone eventually develops from this, it appears it would generally move eastward toward Florida, but the northern Gulf coast should also be on alert for impacts.
Thankfully, it is not posing a wind or storm surge threat to anyone in the foreseeable future, but heavy rainfall is beginning to become a concern, and it could be directed toward Florida next week. Again, any slight shifts could also put the northern Gulf coast on alert.
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