Days after Henri battered the Northeast as a tropical storm, a tropical depression in the Caribbean is heading toward the Gulf of Mexico. It could strengthen into a hurricane this week and take aim at the U.S. Gulf Coast, according to AccuWeather.
The National Hurricane Center said Tropical Depression 9 isexpected to strengthen and become a tropical storm Thursday night and then a hurricane. The system is expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday night and could be near major hurricane strength when it approaches the northern Gulf coast Sunday.
“Odds are we’re going to have a hurricane by the time we get out of this weekend in the Gulf of Mexico,” AccuWeather meteorologist Bernie Rayno said in Wednesday’s edition of his Weather Insider podcast.
The depression could bring dangerous impacts from storm surge, hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall to portions of the coasts of the Florida Panhandle, upper Texas and Louisiana late this weekend and early next week.
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The National Weather Service in New Orleans warned residents along the northern and western Gulf Coast to monitor the depression since it’s still too early to determine where it will go.
The system is producing showers and thunderstorms that are gradually becoming better organized in association with a trough of low pressure located a couple hundred miles south of Jamaica, the National Hurricane Center said.
“The overall environment appears to be quite favorable for development perhaps as early as Friday, but more likely Saturday,” AccuWeather hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski said.
The system is forecast to move northwest over the Caribbean Sea later Thursday, near Cuba and the Cayman Islands on Friday and move into the Gulf of Mexico this weekend. Once the system moves to the Gulf, “rapid intensification” is forecast in the next two to three days, the National Hurricane Center said Thursday.
Regardless of development, heavy rainfall and flooding will be possible through the weekend in portions of Central America, the Yucatan Peninsula, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Cuba, according to the National Hurricane Center. The rainfall may produce life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.
Tropical storm warnings have been issued in Cuba and the Cayman Islands. The depression was about 95 miles south-southwest of Jamaica and had maximum sustained winds of 35 mph Thursday afternoon. To become a tropical storm, sustained winds would have to reach 39 mph.
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The next named storms of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season will be Ida, Julian and Kate.
Elsewhere, the National Hurricane Center is monitoring two other systems in the Atlantic basin.
A broad trough of low pressure is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms over the central tropical Atlantic about 650 miles east-southeast of Bermuda.
Environmental conditions are forecast to be generally conducive for development, and a tropical depression is likely to form late this week or this weekend while the system moves slowly northeastward over the central Atlantic.
A tropical wave over the far eastern tropical Atlantic located several hundred miles west-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms.
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