Storm Chasers

Dr. Jeff Masters over at Wunderground says tropical depression 93L is the first real shot at a named Atlantic storm and it may form this week (which would be Tropical Storm Alex).  Guess where it's headed?

A trough of low pressure is expected to swing down over the Eastern U.S. early next week. If this trough is strong enough and 93L develops significantly, the storm could get pulled northwards and make landfall along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast in the oil spill region. This is the solution of the Canadian GEM model. If 93L stays weak and/or the trough is not so strong, the storm would get pushed west-northwestwards towards the Texas coast. This is the solution of the ECMWF model. The amount of wind shear in the Gulf of Mexico next week is highly uncertain. There is currently a band of high shear near 30 knots over the Gulf, and some of the models predict this shear will remain over the Gulf over the next 7 - 10 days. However, other models predict that this band of high shear will retreat northwards and leave the Gulf nearly shear-free. The long-term fate of 93L remains very murky. My main concerns at this point are the potential for 3 - 6 inches of rain in Haiti over the next two days, and the possibility 93L could become a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico next week.

That would be, you know, catastrophic. Worse, it's only June...we have months to go in the 2010 hurricane season, folks.  One really bad Cat 3-4 storm smack over the Gulf Coast this year and all those hundreds of millions of gallons of oil and chemical dispersants could end up dozens of miles inland into freshwater sources.

It keeps getting worse and worse.