June 1 marked the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season, yet forecasters have already been busy for weeks monitoring multiple zones of disturbed weather. The season’s third tropical storm could soon develop from a trouble spot in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, and it could cause a new record to be set in the basin.
Two pre-season storms, Arthur and Bertha, formed in warm waters off the Southeast coast on May 16 and May 27, respectively, and Bertha slammed into South Carolina for an early-season landfall in the United States. And the next system may soon take shape in a different hotspot that has shown more signs of tropical activity.
“A tropical depression or storm could form along the coast of southeastern Mexico, over the Bay of Campeche, as early as Monday night or Tuesday,” Dan Kottlowski, AccuWeather’s top hurricane expert, said early Monday morning.
A system called the Central America gyre helped give birth to Tropical Storm Amanda over the eastern Pacific Ocean over the weekend. Amanda turned deadly after drifting inland over Central America and unleashing torrential rain, flooding and mudslides in El Salvador and Guatemala. Even though the system has weakened into a tropical rainstorm over land with a circulation barely recognizable by Monday morning, forecasters are growing more concerned about a second disturbance brewing. The gyre has the potential to spin off a second system, but this time on the Atlantic side in the region, perhaps by the middle of this week.
“Since the old circulation from Amanda has completely broken up, any new system that forms on the Atlantic side would garner a brand-new name based on the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season list,” Kottlowski said. The next tropical storm to form in the Atlantic will be given the name Cristobal.
Should Cristobal develop prior to or on Thursday, June 4, it would be the earliest occurrence of three named systems in the Atlantic basin. The 2016 season holds the record for the earliest ever third tropical storm, and it was Tropical Storm Colin, which formed on June 5, that helped that year go down in the books.
June 12 is the second earliest date for a third tropical storm to generate in the basin, and forecasters say that record had stood since 1887.
This does not mean the United States is not at risk for impact and landfall from the tropical system. The atmosphere and weather systems are constantly changing. Ultimately, these changes will steer the tropical system in the long range.
“If it races northward, around the time the high-pressure area is weakening, it may hit the central Gulf Coast, perhaps near Louisiana as early as Sunday afternoon or Sunday night,” Kottlowski said. “If it is delayed, high pressure is forecast to rebuild over the central and southeastern U.S. this weekend, which could force the system toward Texas sometime early next week.”
