Depicted in the graphic below over the Gulf of Mexico is a tropical disturbance with increasingly organized thunderstorm activity. Numerous computer models forecast this system developing into a tropical depression or tropical storm later this week. Residents and those with plans along the Gulf Coast late this week into the Labor Day weekend and next week should monitor the situation closely. There have already been evacuations of some personnel from offshore oil rigs.

This area of clouds, showers and thunderstorms has formed along a tropical wave. The tropical wave is projected to move into the central and northern Gulf today and into tomorrow. It will interact with a westward-moving upper-level low currently over the mouth of the Mississippi and a surface low should be spawned in the northern Gulf by tomorrow. The GFS and European models are far apart on the solution of this feature on how it interacts with an upper trough that will deepen over the mid-Mississippi Valley and the eastern U.S. later this weekend and early next week. With the GFS, the low gets sheared to the east by the upper trough and tracks across the Deep South next week while on the European, the low misses the connection with the upper trough and stalls east of Texas early next week. There is still a lot of uncertainty on how this will evolve but we are concerned that heavy rain will lead to flooding over the northern Gulf coast through the latter part of the week.