Gulf Storm to Hit Florida? Model Says Yes, But Experts Disagree

Hurricane season for the Atlantic begins on June 1 and now is the time to start getting your preparations ready. The more you have ready before a storm is even on the horizon the better. No worries about shelves running out if you're already stocked up on the non-perishables.

As June 1 approaches, some forecast models can begin showing what the atmosphere may be doing during the first week or two of hurricane season. Not many models forecast that far into the future, but one seems to be showing the formation of a storm in the Gulf around June 10. I've been watching this model and what it shows has changed somewhat over the last few days since I first noticed it.

Here's what that tropical storm system looked like when I first saw it based on the GFS model on Pivotal Weather.

I've been watching this all week, and I'm certainly NOT predicting a hurricane in the Gulf at this point, but it's worth keeping an eye on. Here's the most recent model output for the same time as the above image.

There has been some change in the location of the possible storm throughout the week, but the persistence of the feature on the model runs is worth noting. The other main forecast model for the longer term like this is is the ECMWF model and this is how it looks for that June 10 time frame.

The prediction from NOAA is for an above normal hurricane season, and there is already a tropical storm in the eastern Pacific, but the season for that region starts a bit earlier than the Atlantic and the forecast for Tropical Storm Alvin doesn't show it becoming a very strong system at this point. We'll learn in the next couple of weeks if the computer models are right about a tropical storm system and possible hurricane in the Gulf.