TYLER, Texas — There's just about two weeks to go until the end of the hurricane season, but the tropics are not giving up that easy.
Wednesday afternoon the National Hurricane Center named an area of thunderstorms in the southern Caribbean, a potential tropical cyclone.
It is the 19th such designation of the season so this storm is potential tropical cyclone No. 19.
As of Wednesday night, it was less than 10 mph away from becoming a tropical storm. The storm was moving west at nine mph and is forecast to strengthen into a tropical storm before making landfall in the southern Yucatan Peninsula, but not until Monday.
In the meantime, the strengthening of the storm is favored for a couple of reasons. Weak wind shear in the southern Caribbean and a high level of available energy in the area where PTC 19 is forecast to travel.
The storm is forecast to follow the higher available energy, and cross the southern Yucatan Peninsula. Once it re-emerges over the southern Gulf Of Mexico the storm will have to reorganize and gain strength. There is sufficient energy for that to occur.
The storm is forecast by many models to begin northeastward into the central Gulf of Mexico thanks to a large storm crossing the central U.S. early next week. Tropical storms will get stronger if winds aloft are weaker or there is low wind shear to tear the storms apart and there is a chance the storm could strengthen as it moves into the central Gulf where shear drops.
The storm has many possible outcomes at this point. Plotting several computer models specific to the tropics gives us some guidance of the possible outcomes, and many point to the storm moving over the Yucatan and into the central Gulf of Mexico.
Time will tell but if the model plots are correct there could be at least some disruption to oil platforms, cruise ship routes and cargo ships carrying goods through the Gulf.
We will watch the developments of this storm and have more updates so keep checking back here at CBS19.tv.
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