T.S. Mindy Weakens Inland. Heavy Rains Ahead for Texas/Louisiana.

Fig. 1: Morning weather satellite view of the North Atlantic basin.

Discussion: Late yesterday Tropical Storm Mindy became the 13^th named storm of the 2021 tropical cyclone season. Mindy is now a tropical depression over southwest Georgia (Fig. 1) and likely too weak to regenerate to a tropical storm once offshore later today. Larry is now a category-2 hurricane located 240 miles east-southeast of Bermuda. Larry turns north-northeast tomorrow and accelerates (as a hurricane) reaching Newfoundland tomorrow night. Larry weakens to a tropical storm into the northern Atlantic this weekend.

Next up is a disruptive tropical rainfall dropping anchor over the northwest Gulf of Mexico. The 10-day forecast by the ECM model indicates 5-10 in. of rain (or more) along the Texas and western Louisiana coast (Fig. 2). The trigger for the rainfall is a tropical warm front focusing the heavy rainfall along the northwest Gulf Coast. There is a risk of a tropical system moving north out of the Bay of Campeche to northeast Texas at the onset of the wet weather pattern otherwise a significant tropical cyclone is not involved.

The wet weather pattern is likely to ease slowly in the 11-15-day period while shifting to Louisiana.

Elsewhere, the outer North Atlantic tropics are likely to produce 1 or 2 tropical cyclones during mid-September. Forecast models also indicate a possible tropical system off the Southeast U.S. Coast later next week.

Fig. 2: ECM 10-day rainfall forecast for the western Gulf of Mexico.