The remnants of Tropical Depression Five are still spinning over southwestern Georgia, and the storm is headed southwards towards the Gulf of Mexico, where redevelopment into a tropical depression could occur by Tuesday. Latest long range radar out of Mobile, Alabama shows that a band of intense thunderstorms has developed over the northern Gulf of Mexico, and satellite imagery shows that this activity continues to intensify and expand in areal coverage. Most of the heavy rain is offshore, but I expect heavy rains will spread to the Florida Panhandle late this afternoon. These heavy rains will likely spread to coastal regions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Southeast Louisiana by Monday, as the center of ex-TD 5 approaches the coast and the storm begins to wind up again. By Tuesday, the GFS and HWRF models predict that the center will move off the coast, and TD 5 will be reborn again. The system may have enough time over water to become a weak tropical storm before making landfall Tuesday night or Wednesday morning over Southeast Louisiana. Wind shear is currently low, 5 - 10 knots, and is expected to remain low to moderate, 5 - 15 knots, over the next three days, favoring re-development of TD 5. NHC is giving a 20% chance that TD 5 will regenerate into a tropical depression by 8am EDT Tuesday. I think the odds are higher than this, perhaps 40%.
Figure 1.
Morning satellite image of the remnants of TD 5
Elsewhere in the tropics
All of the major models have been predicting a major pattern shift in the global atmosphere late this week, which leads to breakdown of the Russian heat wave and the start of the Cape Verdes hurricane season. The models have been consistently predicting a tropical storm will form off the coast of Africa late this week, and track west-northwestward across the Atlantic. As usual, it is highly uncertain what track a storm that has yet to form might take.
The NOGAPS model is predicting possible development of a tropical depression near the coast of Nicaragua or Honduras late this week.
