FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The disturbance churning near the southeastern Gulf of Mexico has the potential to do what hasn’t been done in two years.
The remnants of what was Hurricane Agatha in the Pacific are highly likely to form into a tropical depression or potentially the Atlantic’s first named storm of 2022 this week in the Gulf of Mexico.
Storms don’t often cross over from one basin to another, and it’s more uncommon that one crosses from the Pacific into the Atlantic, said AccuWeather meteorologist Jake Sojda. That’s what could happen with the disturbance now near the Yucatan Peninsula.
Forecasters with the National Hurricane Center said as of 8 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday that there’s a 70% chance a tropical depression or Tropical Storm Alex could emerge in the warm Gulf waters in the next five days.
Whether Alex forms or not, South Florida is going to see heavy rainfall by the weekend, said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesperson for the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
“Now, what it’s going to look like, where it’s going to go, how large it will be and things like that, it’s way too early to determine,” Feltgen said.
Warm water temperatures are an optimal factor in tropical storm and hurricane development. In mid-June of last year, Tropical Storm Claudette formed in the Gulf waters and came ashore in Louisiana.
This is a La Niña year, meaning water temperatures will be warmer than usual and there’s less wind shear to tear apart storms.
Current water temperatures are about one to two degrees higher than average for this time of year, Sojda said, creating favorable conditions for the disturbance to develop.
“Despite the warm water that we’re looking at right now, I don’t think were currently anticipating a particularly strong system,” he said. “There’s a number of things that will come into play over the next few days.”
Despite wind shear that typically inhibits storms from developing, forecasters said it is still highly likely to develop into a tropical depression as it moves toward the northeast over the Caribbean Sea and the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on Thursday night or Friday.
It is forecast to bring heavy rain to portions of southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, then spread across western Cuba, the Florida peninsula, and the Florida Keys by the end of the week.
“A sure bet seems there’s going to be heavy rainfall ... Friday and Saturday in South Florida, so we need folks to at least pay attention to it,” Feltgen said.
Hurricane Agatha rapidly intensified Sunday, becoming a Category 2 hurricane, when its maximum sustained winds jumped 35 mph in less than 24 hours to 105 mph.
Agatha was unusual because hurricanes don’t often develop that far east in May and, typically, they are farther west, said National Weather Service Miami meteorologist Sammy Hadi.
Hurricane Agatha downgraded to Tropical Storm Agatha by Tuesday after moving over storm-shredding mountainous terrain near Oaxaca, Mexico. Agatha made landfall Monday evening in coastal town of Puerto Angel in southern Mexico.
Agatha’s maximum sustained winds had plummeted to 45 mph by early Tuesday and had dissipated by Tuesday afternoon, one day before the official start of hurricane season.
In Oaxaca, up to 20 inches of rain, or almost 2 feet, were possible in some areas, triggering the threat of floods and mudslides.
Though a tropical depression is likely to develop in the Atlantic from Agatha’s “leftover energy,” it will no longer carry the name because the system’s circulation is no longer intact, Hadi said. If Agatha had moved across land with its circulation intact, it would have kept the name.
“The circulation has fallen apart. In this case, whatever does develop will have a different name ... But it’s not extremely rare to have systems crossover,” Hadi said.
The remnants of Agatha are “just a small piece” of what’s called the Central American Gyre, Hadi said, a large area of moisture that causes heavy rainfall over Central America.
Feltgen said the last time a storm remained intact moving from the Atlantic basin, across land and into the Pacific, keeping its name, was Hurricane Otto in 2016. But there’s not been a storm on record that stayed in tact moving from the Pacific into the Atlantic.
It is not unprecedented for remnants of storms that formed in the Pacific to cross and develop in the Atlantic, but it still doesn’t happen often, Feltgen said.
“We’ve had cases on historic record that remnants from something went into Guatemala or Mexico, the remnants emerged out on the other side. That’s been known to happen,” Feltgen said.
In 2020, Tropical Storm Amanda in the eastern Pacific crossed Central America, emerged in the Bay of Campeche, in the Gulf of Mexico and became Tropical Storm Cristobal in the Atlantic, which is similar to what could happen later this week, Sojda said.
“That is a very uncommon thing to happen,” Sojda said. “In speaking about cross over storms where they go from one basin to the other, strictly speaking with east Pacific and the Atlantic, that in and of itself is a pretty uncommon occurrence.”
When storms do cross over, they tend to go from the Atlantic into the Pacific, Sojda said, because the wind flows there are more favorable.
“It happens so inconsistently there really isn’t a good way to say this happens every so many years ... It really is just a factor of what the conditions are and what happens to happen,” Sojda said.
Experts have seen crossover storms more in recent years, he said, with the latest in 2020. Prior to that, Tropical Storm Hermine in 2010 formed from the remnants of Tropical Depression 11 in the Pacific, according to the National Weather Service.
The mountains in Central America, from Mexico to Panama, often shred storms with low-level circulations, Sojda said. That’s what “makes it extremely difficult” for storms to cross over.
Florida has a 75% chance of getting hit by a hurricane this year, according to one expert, which is the highest chance of any state in the U.S.
AccuWeather senior meteorologist Dan Kottlowski said his research shows Florida, with its abundance of coastline, has the highest chance of getting hit by a hurricane this year. Louisiana, which has been pounded by four hurricanes the last two years, including three major hurricanes, is second highest at 56%.
Hurricane season officially starts June and ends Nov. 30.
Floridians can buy supplies to prepare for this hurricane season free of sales taxes through June 10. Pet supplies are now included in the list of tax-free items.
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