Eyes on the Gulf

50% chance of tropical cyclone forming next week

Cyclone could develop in the next week.

There is now a 50 percent chance that a tropical cyclone will form in the Gulf ofMexico by next week, the National Hurricane Center said Thursday.

Forecasters are monitoring an area of rainandclouds inthe area of the northwestern Caribbean Sea and Yucatan Peninsula— the part ofMexico that hooks north into the Gulf of Mexico — that has the potential to become better organized.

It was still too early to be able to saywith any certainty if and when there would be any land impacts.

“The system has not developed yet and likely won't for a few days,” said Dennis Feltgen, meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “It is too early to determine what specific land areaswould be affected or what the impacts would be. Much will depend upon how much organization it might acquire over the southern Gulf of Mexico.”

Another area in the far easternAtlantic Oceanwas also being monitored by hurricane forecasters. That weather, associated with a tropical wave, was moving slowly westward. It still has a 20 percent chance

of formation over the next five days— no change from Wednesday’s forecast. It isn’t considered a threat to South Florida or any other land at this point.

Mike Boylan, creator of the popular Mike’s Weather Page website, noted in a Facebook post Thursday that the typical “spaghetti models,” or the array of lines that show a system’s potential path, haven’t yet been invoked because the system hasn’t yet been designated as an “invest.”

An invest is basically an area of tropical disturbance that becomes noteworthy enough to investigate. At this point, forecast models are applied and the spaghetti-like lines, each representing a different forecast agency, begin to show where the disturbance could be headed.

“Got to keep watching next few days to narrow it down but odds have increased overnight,” posted Boylan, who lives in Oldsmar, in the Tampa Bay area.

“Time frame is next week basically until it reaches the Gulf. It is not an invest yet so no spaghetti

models to view.”

A tropical cyclone can take the form of a tropical depression, tropical storm, or hurricane.

A depression has a maximum sustained wind speed of up to 38 mph, while a tropical storm’s maximum wind speeds would be between 39 mph and73mph. Theminimum wind speed for a hurricane is 74 mph.

Hurricane season, which began June 1, lasts untilNov. 30.