A tropical disturbance in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico is expected to bring significant rainfall to parts of Texas and Louisiana this week and could rapidly develop into a stronger storm, including a hurricane, according to the National Weather Service.
The weather service said Sunday that the storm is expected to move slowly northwestward over the next few days, tracking near and along the Gulf coasts of Mexico and Texas.
Parts of southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana are expected to see heavy rainfall in mid-to-late this week, meteorologist Donald Jones with the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, Louisiana, said in a Saturday night forecast.
“We need to continue to monitor the weather forecast closely over the next few days because this could develop and evolve pretty quickly. It could be anything from just a tropical moist air mass with no name to a possible hurricane,” Jones said.
Jones said warm water temperatures and other conditions in the Gulf of Mexico are favorable for storm development.
“We’ve seen hurricanes in the past that have developed quickly over just a few days or even less, so it’s not impossible that it could happen here,” Jones said.
An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft was scheduled to survey the tropical disturbance later Sunday to gather more data.
The tropical disturbance follows an unusually quiet August and early September in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs through Nov. 30. Jones said the season is on track to peak on Tuesday.
This hurricane season has seen five named storms so far, including Hurricane Beryl, which knocked out power to nearly 3 million homes and businesses in the Houston, Texas, area in July. Experts have predicted it will be the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record.
In a report released last week, researchers from Colorado State University cited several reasons for the lack of hurricane activity this season, including extremely high temperatures aloft, creating atmospheric stability, and excessively strong easterly winds in the eastern Atlantic.
However, the report said conditions are likely to become more favorable at scale around mid-September, so overall it expects an above-normal season.
Last month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration updated its forecast but still predicted a very active Atlantic hurricane season, with forecasters adjusting their expected number of named storms from 17 to 25 to 17 to 24.
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First Published: September 9, 2024 | 07:05 AM IST