Texas Beware: A Tropical Storm May Form in The Gulf Within a Week

Hurricane Helene will go down as one of the costliest storms in history. The record-setting storm surge destroyed many beachside homes along the coastal Big Bend of Florida. Category 4 winds topping 140 mph have left millions without power.

As catastrophic as that is, it's the massive rainfall associated with Helene that has caused once-in-a-century devastation. A swath from Kentucky to Florida has experienced epic flash flooding, with the mountains of North Carolina especially hard hit.

Hurricane Season Continues

The clean up and recovery from Helene will be measured in years for some areas, but the hurricane season continues through November 30, and several computer models are showing the possibility of another system developing in the Gulf of Mexico before the first weekend of October.

First, some good news. Several weather models do not show tropical development in the Gulf over the next seven days. The three models that suggest tropical development show a system that may not get above tropical storm status.

What The Models Are Forecasting

Let's start with the National Hurricane Center.

For now, forecasters with the NHC are giving this system a 40% of developing into a tropical system over the next 7 days. The cluster is expected to move northwestward into the Gulf of Mexico.

GFS Model

• The Global Forecast System expects this system to mature into a tropical storm/hurricane and make landfall sometime next Saturday near the Louisiana/Mississippi border.

GEM Model

• The Global Environmental Multiscale Model also anticipates a tropical storm/hurricane to form in the Gulf of Mexico during the first days of October. This model forecasts the track to be eerily similar to that of Helene with a Saturday landfall somewhere along the Panhandle of Florida.

UM Model

• The Unified Model gives a rather odd scenario. It is forecasting the tropical system to approach the Mexican coastline south of Texas, but then make a u-turn back towards the Bay of Campeche.

Confidence Level

It's important to note that the confidence level of a tropical system developing in the Gulf of Mexico is moderate, at best. However, we should get a better idea of what may, or may not, develop by Monday or Tuesday.