It’s not official yet, but within the hour the National Hurricane Center will be upgrading Tropical Depression Seven to Tropical Storm Gabrielle. The small storm is bringing heavy rain to Puerto Rico as it slowly drifts north-northwest. There is a lot of uncertainty with the final track of Gabrielle because it is moving so slowly to the north. In the next three days it will likely pass Puerto Rico and be east of the Bahamas.
days it will likely pass Puerto Rico and be east of the Bahamas.
Gabrielle is competing with a larger cluster of thunderstorms just to its east. It will be interesting to see the interaction between these two disturbances. Gabrielle is more organized, but the cluster of thunderstorms is larger. The interaction between the two may help to limit Gabrielle’s intensification in the next couple of days. The computer models are not forecasting rapid strengthening of Gabrielle, and it’s possible it could stay a weak tropical cyclone for several days.The consensus among the computer models is that Gabrielle will get picked up by the trough that brings a cold front through the Eastern United States late in the weekend. Of course, it’s still possible that Gabrielle is too far south to get turned to the north and east by that trough. We would focus more on the first 72 hours of Gabrielle’s track than the turn and acceleration to the northeast. Remember, it was just a couple of days ago that Gabrielle was given a 10-20% chance of forming, and here it is.
