Today a hurricane hunter aircraft investigated invest 99-L and finally confirmed that it had a closed circulation, therefor the National Hurricane Center upgraded it to tropical depression nine and began issuing advisories on it this at 5:00PM ET today.
As of the 10:00pm ET advisory, tropical depression nine was located over the Florida Straits at 23.4 degrees north and 81.7 degrees west. The minimum central pressure was 1007 millibars, maximum sustained winds were 35 miles per hour, and movement was to the west at 9 miles per hour.
Forecast fort tropical depression nine
Tropical depression nine is expected to continue on it’s current westward track reaching the Southeast Gulf of Mexico tomorrow, where wind shear should be at a more favorable level of 10 – 15kts.
The decrease in shear could should allow tropical depression nine to strengthen into a 40 mile per hour tropical storm by tomorrow afternoon.
From there what will likely be tropical storm “Hermine” should track northwest and then north entering the Central Gulf of Mexico by Tuesday where it will have the opportunity to intensify further into a 45 mile per hour tropical storm.
Things become less certain beyond Tuesday.
However, it looks like potential “Hermine” will continue to intensify into a moderate to strong tropical storm between Wednesday and early Thursday before making landfall somewhere between Apalachicola, Florida and Cape Coral, Florida late Thursday.
At this time the chances of tropical depression nine making landfall somewhere in Southeast Louisiana, Southern Alabama, Southern Mississippi, and much of the Western Florida Panhandle have gone down – but they are still not zero.
However, all of this could change tomorrow or Tuesday, because as we stated, things are less certain beyond Tuesday.
If you live anywhere between New Orleans, Louisiana to Cape Coral, Florida you should closely monitor the progress of tropical depression nine.
We should have a better idea on where tropical depression nine is ultimately going to track and how strong it is going to get by tomorrow or Tuesday.
We will have continuing updates on tropical depression nine tomorrow and throughout the week.
