First Tropical Storm of Season?

Well we are almost through the first month of hurricane season, and so far have not had much to discuss. This is not entirely unusual, as many Junes do in fact wind up quiet. But we have a system now in the western Caribbean Sea that I think has a shot at becoming our first named storm of the season. The first image below is the satellite picture of the Caribbean as I type this, and I have posted the link for this above the image, since the image itself shown here is not one which will update, so by the time you read this may be old!

In any case, it looked better earlier, but is not in an ideal environment right now to develop. It should continue to drift northwest, perhaps passing just east of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico this weekend. Wind shear will be gradually subsiding some as well, so it is possible that by Monday it is able to organize into Tropical Storm Ana.

Where would it go from there? Well, a fairly strong trough will dig into the eastern half of the nation, which probably has enough influence to turn whatever is in the Gulf toward Florida. This path would not be one that would allow any storm to strengthen much though, as wind shear is forecast to increase in the northern Gulf by Tuesday in response to the incoming eastern trough. See the second image below for the forecast shear, valid Tuesday evening (courtesy of the fine folks at MDA!). Values greater then 20 knots are certainly unfavorable. This means that, while possibly holding on to "named storm" status, this would be pretty much just a rainmaker for Florida, as it could not possibly intensify much with this pattern in place.

The other option is that the trough does not pick up whatever is there early next week, which would probably mean a path more toward south Texas or Mexico given the ridge that would be to its northwest. But the environment could be a little more favorable for development on this course. I'd rate this as less likely than option one discussed above though. At least we have something to watch!

Carribean Satellite:

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/carb/avn-l.jpg