Hurricane season officially began June 1st for the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, but the National Hurricane Center predicted it will likely be a tame one. Still, that hasn't stopped us from watching to see what is going on in the Gulf! As of now we're keeping an eye on a disturbance that has an 80% chance of developing into a tropical cyclone (read: become a named storm) over the next couple of days.
Of course, the first question is: "Will it have any impact on Mississippi?" The answer is highly likely that no, it will not have much of an impact on our area. This goes for whether or not the system gains a name.
The reason we won't see much action is because there's high pressure building in westward from the East Coast. Typically referred to as a "Bermuda High," this type of high pressure is semi-permanent throughout the summer months. Air over the ocean is typically cooler than the air over the land in the summer, allowing for sinking air which leads to high pressure roughly near Bermuda. In this case, that high pressure is back-building over the southeastern United States and is acting sort of like a shield for our area.
So it does appear that the area of low pressure, whether or not it reaches tropical status, will divert to the west and mainly impact eastern Texas and possibly western Louisiana. The biggest issue will be heavy rain in coastal areas and some gusty winds. Here's an estimate of the amount of rainfall from now until early Wednesday morning, showing a bulls-eye of over 6" rain:
Notice the amount of rain expected for Mississippi in that time frame? It's barely anything. So even though there's a potentially tropical system in the Gulf, we likely won't have to deal with its impacts. We'll continue to keep an eye on it!
Meteorologist Julia Weiden
I don't like severe storms
I don't like severe storms
Posted by: erica | June 24, 2015 at 10:19 AM