The tropics have been remarkably quiet for the last month or so with Elsa, back in the first week of July, as the season's last named storm.
It seems though that the quiet stretch that we have been enjoying is coming to a close, and right on cue as we steadily march into what is traditionally the busiest time of any tropical season.
So as we start the second week in August we find ourselves talking about the next storm on the list, with advisories being issued for Potential Tropical Cyclone (PTC) Six which will eventually become Fred.
In the short term PTC 6 doesn't pose a threat to the western Gulf of Mexico but those with interests in the Caribbean and Florida will need to monitor the storm closely over the next couple of days.
Model guidance is indicating that the system will move across Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and eventually across Cuba before turning north either into south Florida or the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
As is usually the case with small, developing systems the models have really struggled coming to some consensus with the EURO a little more bullish on development and the GFS keeping a slightly weaker system in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
Currently, Monday morning, PTC 6 will stay east of Acadiana with landfall later next week closer to Florida's big bend region which would put us on the western side of a lopsided system.
Intensity forecasts from both the EURO and the GFS keep the storm as a Tropical Storm in the long term, but intensity does have a tendency to change quickly from model to model.
There are going to be a lot of changes with this forecast over the next couple of days as models continue to work toward some kind of consensus.
In the early forecasts it doesn't look like this is going to be a major issue for Louisiana, although it should be watched, but it is a wake up call that we are entering a new phase of the 2021 season.
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