NOAA has just released their forecast for the upcoming hurricane season…find out about that below as well as my thoughts for the season at the bottom of this post.  The National Hurricane Center also had their eyes on Invest 94L this morning as it is now in Florida waters, although south Floridians probably don’t want it there.

A rather elongated area of low pressure is located in the central Florida Keys and is moving toward the north-northeast rather quickly. The exact low center seems to be just to the northeast of Marathon where pressures and buoys in the area are reading around 1008.8 millibars. Earlier in the day Marathon airport showed a pressure of 1008.5 millibars. Winds are well removed from the low level center, and are in the range of 30-35 mph well to the east of southeastern Florida. The LLC should move up over the Everglades in a few hours and then off into the Atlantic. The health of this LLC was quite surprising to me when the first visible shots came up this morning as the center has gone over Cuba and has been fighting shear of 60-70 mph.

With shear like that, there is absolutely no chance a tropical cyclone can develop, and essentially this cloudless LLC is moving through a jet streak. It will probably take 94L another 36-48 hours to get into an area in the far western Atlantic where shear will drop considerably on the other side of this jet streak. Even with the loop current, the very warm Florida Straits, and the Gulf Stream, 94L will not be able to keep any clouds and rain in place vertically above the LLC, which is necessary to sustain a warm core.

Nearly all of the models are showing growth into a weak tropical storm by Memorial Day. The spaghetti plots for this morning’s model runs are in pretty good consensus into Saturday. After that time frame, there are two likely paths with vastly different impacts on Florida.  The two are outlined below as Case A and Case B:

The difference:

Case A:

• Much closer to Florida, could cause additional flooding rains to south Florida/much needed rain for the northern two-thirds of Florida and Georgia.
• Less development in terms of strength since it would develop closer to the high shear areas
• Bring a moister airmass to Florida

Case B:

• Further from Florida
• possible Alberto redo as 94L would likely get stuck and pushed back into Florida waters before being allowed to move back to the northeast
• More development with less shear
• Dries out Florida similar to what Alberto did

Either way, this has the potential to bring a few showers to your Holiday weekend. It is important to note that the above lines should not be followed as a forecast but rather  trains of thought by the models. I will continue to watch it, but for now stay tuned to the NWS Miami office for local flood information. I will post once again later this evening with all the latest information. Begin planning a “Plan B” just in case what could become Beryl comes back our way on Sunday or Monday.

NOAA Announcement:

Just minutes ago, NOAA announced their forecast in conjunction with the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida for the upcoming hurricane season. In highlight, their forecast calls for 9-15 tropical storms (including Alberto), 4-8 hurricanes, and 1-3 hurricanes that reach category 3 intensity. That means that NOAA is expecting a normal hurricane season, although it will likely be less active than the last 5 to 10 years in comparison. Although this might be less active than in recent years, it is important to note that it only takes one storm to make a hurricane season, such as Hurricane Andrew…which occurred 20 years ago this August. The 1992 hurricane season only had seven tropical storms and one major hurricane…Andrew.

You can read the entire release here: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20120524_atlantic_hurricane_season.html

Either tonight or tomorrow I will be looking ahead myself with my thoughts on how this hurricane season may shake out. Does having two tropical systems before the Atlantic hurricane season mean anything for the rest of the season….

AND could there be yet another storm system before the end of May on the horizon??