3:00 PM | Watching the tropics; potential exists for tropical moisture to ride up the east coast late this week after dumping on Florida

Discussion

The Atlantic Basin hurricane season officially began on Saturday, June 1st, and, as if right on cue, there is now an area of deep tropical moisture situated over the eastern Gulf of Mexico and some of this is from the remains of a Pacific Ocean tropical storm named Barbara that crossed over Central America into the Gulf region late last week. Whether or not this area of disturbed weather eventually gets an “official” classification as the season’s first tropical depression/storm, it is likely to inundate parts of Florida with at least 6-12 inches of rain over the next few days, and then it could very well ride right up the east coast with some heavy rainfall and strong winds to the east of the circulation center.

There is currently some disagreement with the many computer forecast models in terms of the eventual track that this tropical system will take, but a couple of them (e.g., Euro, Canadian) do suggest that this moisture will ride right up the east coast late this week bringing with it some heavy rainfall to the Mid-Atlantic region in the Friday/Saturday time frame and some strong winds to coastal regions. The US GFS model does not follow the Euro and Canadian model solution as it tends to move the moisture off the southeast coast after taking it across the state of Florida over the next few days. The scenario that depicts this system to ride all the way up the east coast is certainly a plausible solution, in my opinion, as high pressure will shift off the east coast later this week and this should open the door for a northeastward advancement of the tropical moisture from the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Stay tuned.