A More-Benign Outcome For Tampa

The first surge of moisture is reaching Tampa now. More will come.

It looks like this will be the best possible scenario with all this moisture. It won’t be possible for a strong storm system to organize if it approaches Florida directly from the south.

Forecasting how this surge of moisture would evolve was a pain. The forecast kept dodging around, probably because there were a number of equally-plausible possible outcomes, many of which were bad. These scenarios were:

1.) Hurricane in far western Gulf of Mexico, with tropical depression east of Florida;
2.) Hurricane in far western Gulf of Mexico, with tropical depression west of Florida;
3.) Hurricane just off shore of Tampa;
4.) Hurricane in far western Gulf of Mexico, with tropical moisture approaching Florida from the south;
5.) Tropical moisture approaches Florida from the south, then splits into two tropical storms, one each for the east and west coasts of Florida;
6.) And the more-benign case that seems to be happening: tropical moisture approaching Florida from the south, with tropical depression in far western Gulf of Mexico.

Whew!