Gamma Goes...

Gamma is looking better on satellite this evening. The official NHC 5 day forecast track has Gamma becoming a hurricane in 120 hours, south of Jamaica. At that point, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the forecast. The models today have started to show more of a northerly turn, and quite of few of them picked up on this shift today. What is causing this is the potential for a weakness to develop in the strong high pressure that has been camped out of the southeast US for the past 2 weeks. We haven't had a drop of rain here in North Carolina in weeks (and boy do we need it!). The weather has been beautiful, dry and warm as this high has been camped out over top of us. If this high stays in place the storm will move due West. In all likelihood, Gamma will be a Cat 1 hurricane or tropical storm for Belize or the Yucatan, but a CONUS hit is not out of the question. As people begin to start traveling for Thanksgiving next week, Gamma could still leave some uncertainty surrounding it for the Gulf Coast and Florida. Stay tuned.

SCM