There has been little change with invest 99-L today; it is presently located over the Southern Bahamas and remains disorganized.
Wind shear finally dropped to a more favorable 10 – 15 kts over 99-L this morning and this afternoon causing a significant uptick in sustainable thunderstorm activity with 99-L that has continued into tonight. However, the increase in thunderstorm activity is confined to the east and northeast of 99-L’s center which indicates that 99-L remains disorganized.
Some drier air getting en-trained into 99-L appears to be the main reason 99-L remains disorganized despite the drop in shear.
Dry air will likely continue to plague 99-L over the next day or two preventing it from developing this weekend.
However, 99-L is still expected to track west-northwest into the Southeast Gulf of Mexico early this upcoming week; and it is possible that environmental conditions could become slightly more favorable by then potentially allowing 99-L to develop into a tropical depression or storm.
The latest runs of the UKMET, CMC, and HWRF are picking up on this potential and continue to develop 99-L into a tropical storm over the Southeast Gulf over early next week. On the other hand, the latest runs of the more reliable GFS and ECMWF do not.
As of their 8:00pm EDT tropical weather outlook the National Hurricane Center gave 99-L a 20% chance of developing over the next 2 days and a 50% chance of developing over the next 5 days.
Basically 99-L’s chances of developing over the next several days have diminished further but have not diminished completely.
If 99-L does develop over the Gulf early this upcoming week it would potentially track anywhere from Southeast Louisiana to the West Coast of Florida.
Summary
The bottom line is that much uncertainty remains regarding the evolution 99-L over the next several days. However, 99-L developing into a tropical depression or storm over the next several days is looking less and less likely; but still can’t be ruled out.
If 99-L manages to develop sometime early this week it would likely track towards the North-Central Gulf Coast.
We will have another update out tomorrow.
