The quiet hurricane season has picked up but fortunately it has been uneventful for Florida and the Gulf states. But those areas may see its first significant threat next week from a tropical wave moving into the east Caribbean called Invest 98.
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It is more than a week out but several models develop the wave into Tropical Storm Hermine by the weekend south of Jamaica. Both the GFS and EURO take it into the southern Gulf followed by diverging tracks between south Florida or Louisiana.
It is too early to nail down specifics but October typically brings the brunt of storms to Florida’s west coast. What could be Hermine would develop before October but the month has a history of hurricane impacts on the state after the peak of the season on September 10.
Here is a list of all landfalling October hurricanes in the state showing a disproportionate number of landfalls long the Gulf compared to the east coast. This is reflected by a preponderance of cold fronts that typically move into the Gulf, or stall near it, which turns the steering flow back to the northeast and into the eastern Gulf coast.