Patrick99 wrote:So, the GFS is suggesting that this low forming in the Gulf is actually going to track south of Florida? Are we really buying that? I would think that the Euro's solution, with the low into South Florida, would be much more likely, and frankly I'm not even ready to buy that either. These lows this time of year almost always track into the Big Bend, Central Florida at the most southerly, don't they? Just seems strange for a Gulf low to form in January, and miss South Florida *to the south*.
Well, the big storm which brought snow to portions of North Florida and Southern Georgia last week initially formed south of the Middle Florida Keys in the Florida Straits. It missed South Florida to the south and east
The Low tracked northeast off the Southeast coast of Florida and then parallel off the Florida East coast and then pulled away off the Southeast U.S. Atlantic coastal region. That Low was forecast for days leading up to the event by both GFS and EURO to form much farther north up around the Northwest Bahamas. So, the models were off quite a bit with that initialization.
So, although this time of the year it may be more common or typical of Low Pressure systems to track farther north out of the GOM, a storm can form farther south depending upon the placement or position of the sub tropical jet or southern stream energy(vorticity).