meteorologyman wrote:yeah from what I understand, there is a BIG Strong ridge over Texas which is why you're dry and when any storm head your way it goes around the ridge which leaves you dry,....... Unfortanately as long as that ridge is there you'll remain dry, and probably no hope for even a tropical rainfall like Alberto.
Actually, there's a decent upper-level trough over much of the Gulf of Mexico (see
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/upper/upaCNTR_200.gif ). The strong ridge aloft that has sat over much of the southern and central plains lately has resulted in record high temperatures and continued the drought. This pattern is changing, and models indicate that a cut-off low may meander over the central/southern Plains by the end of the weekend and into next week. For the Gulf, the NAM is forecasting the trough over the Gulf to cut-off and retrograde slowly to the west-southwest with time. Regardless, there should be decent southwesterly flow aloft across at least the northern 1/2 of the Gulf of Mexico for the next few days. The approaching trough that will cut-off into an upper-level low over Plains will act to kick out the western Gulf / Texas coast upper-level low this weekend. Meanwhile, per the GFS forecast, another upper-level low will drop off the southeastern US coast, and put most of the Gulf of Mexico under northerly flow aloft (the exact details differ by model, as expected).
So, I don't see any forecast which would be favorable for a storm to head into the northwester Gulf. Ridging may build into the central and eastern Gulf in a couple of days, but that'll weaken by the weekend. In addition, despite stronger flow in the upper-levels, the southerly 500mb flow to the east of the Texas-coast upper-level may provide a brief window to a storm to squeek into that area, though upper-level flow may provide a less-than-favorable shear pattern. The GFS suggests that, by mid-next week, a relatively low-amplitude, high-wavelength upper-level trough will develop across the Gulf, with southwesterly flow at 250mb across the eastern 1/2. FWIW, the ECMWF indicates that the cut-off low off the SE US coast will retrograde back to the west-northwest. The ECMWF is showing a brief window for a storm to squeek into the western Gulf as well. Of course, hurricanes modify their environment, so we don't know what sort of feedback may be involved.
Of course, this is rather dubious, since the depth of the system significant influence the levels of the troposphere that affect their movement. Deeper systems (e.g. well-organized hurricanes) are more affected by 250mb flow than shallow systems. Therefore, any sort of forecast "trajectory" would need to rely on accurately forecasting the intensity of the sytem. We all know how difficult intensity forecasts are for well-formed storms, and forecasting the intensity of an undeveloped system is shady at best.