Houstonia wrote:Just curious - I see a lot of predictions of this invest moving into Mexico. Isn't that further than the 5-day cone of prediction? How come so many people already know it's a Mexico storm? Can predictions be made with a high level of certainty at this point? I don't mind the predictions, just curious about the certainty. Thanks.
Disturbances and storms track along with the winds aloft. If the winds above a system are blowing from east to west, then the system moves to the west. The models are fairly good at predicting the positions of highs and lows in the middle and upper part of the atmosphere for 5 days out and often quite farther out.
In this case, the models are indicating that the high pressure area over Texas in the mid levels of the atmosphere will extend eastward across the Gulf over the coming week. That means the winds aloft will be blowing from east to west across the western Caribbean and southern Gulf of Mexico. And since the winds aloft are blowing to the west, that's where the disturbance (or storm) should go. It will move westward to the south of the big area of high pressure to its north.
Here's a map showing the predicted position of the high center by both the American GFS model and the European model for next Wednesday. With that kind of flow present when the disturbance reaches near the Yucatan, it really can't turn north or head to Texas. That is, unless all the models are completely wrong about the position of the high center.
