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Saturday Evening Invest 99 update...still disorganized

Invest 99 is now sitting just north of Central Cuba.  It is a little better organized today compared to yesterday as more showers and thunderstorms have developed around this system.  However, it overall is still disorganized.  It is still fighting off wind shear and some dry air.  Invest 99 is moving to the WNW and will enter the Florida Straits on Sunday.  NHC is giving it a medium chance for development in 2 days and in 5 days.  The Hurricane Hunters are scheduled to investigate the system on Sunday.
Once it enters the Florida Straits, the system will have slightly better conditions for development.  Then it is forecast to continue to move to the WNW into the Eastern Gulf of Mexico on Monday.  At this point, there will be better conditions for development where water temperatures are in the upper 80s.  However, the forecast models are still very uncertain of where Invest 99 will go.  The spaghetti plots show it could go anywhere from the Central Texas Coast to South Florida - basically anywhere in the Northern Gulf of Mexico! It is hard to put any faith into them right now.  Like I had mentioned yesterday, until there is a closed center of circulation and a developed area of low pressure, the forecast models will continue to have a hard time showing where the system will go.  Right now, they are best used to look for trends.  The trends I'm seeing show it moving at least into the Eastern Gulf and a lot of them show it turning north.  This will be something I will watch over the next few days.  

 The latest GFS model now shows the system staying weak and possibly making a landfall over the Big Bend of Florida on Friday.  This morning, the model showed the system not developing into anything, so that is a change between the two runs. It is LIKELY this will change many more times too!

The Euro (ECMWF) now shows it developing into at least a tropical storm, if not more, and heading toward Pensacola, FL on Saturday.  This morning it had it as a weak low moving up the East Coast of Florida and staying out a sea.  Obviously, this is MUCH different than what it shows now, and it will LIKELY change again many times!  

Again, you can't put much faith into the models right now.  All you can do is use these as a guide!!  We will just have to wait and see what Invest 99 will do tomorrow and early this week. I know you want to know for sure what it will do, but I just can't answer that right now.  There are WAAAAAAAAY too many uncertainties in place to make that call.  

 Since there have been SOOOO many changes already in what Invest 99 could so, and there will be SOOO many more changes coming, make sure you get the latest updates from me or any other reliable meteorologist.  Please be careful not to get caught up in some of these Facebook pages that are doing updates! They may have a lot of "likes", but know they most of them are not being updated by degreed  meteorologists! Did you know that?!?  It is true, so use caution if you see those pages show up in your feeds.  

 Now is still a good time to get prepared just in case this system does develop in the Gulf of Mexico.  Have a plan of what to do and where to go.  Please stay tuned to WWL-TV and my updates here, on Facebook and Twitter.  Have a good night, and I will post another update on Sunday. -Dave

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