Elsa Showing Signs Of Becoming A Hurricane Again...

As Elsa remains over the open waters of the eastern Gulf, there have been bursts of T-Storms that now appear to be wrapping around her center.

Her cloud structure is becoming more circular and the colorized infrared has bright (cold) cloud tops that also look to be concentrated around her center.  You can even see some banding with a eyewall structure trying to form on radar views.  NHC now predicts Elsa will become a Cat. 1 Hurricane later tonight.  Elsa will not be nearly as strong as Zeta (Cat. 3) was over us last year.  

NHC is keeping the center line track just off the coast west of Clearwater making landfall near Cedar Key around midnight.   The strongest (Hurricane Force) winds will be mainly over water, but make no mistake, both sides of Tampa bay will take a real beating tonight with the worst being west over Pinellas County northward.  But as Lee Zurik often says..."but there's more."

The wide view has no more action down in the Caribbean, but look at the western Gulf.   There appears to be a low level circulation between Corpus and Brownsville hugging the coast.  NHC isn't talking about it so I guess we need not worry?

If that low level spin drifts out over the Gulf...Nah, I don't want to think about it.   Locally, we still are stuck under above normal clouds and showers.

That results in temperatures staying below 90 for most locations.  But that will be changing later this week as Elsa pulls away to the Northeast and the old Bermuda High builds back over us.

You know that drill.  Fewer clouds & more sunshine results in hotter temperatures.  That is to be expected since we are approaching the hottest time of the year historically.  Betty Davies might have said "Getting old is not for sissies."     If we replace the "getting old" with Summers in the South, well the meaning is pretty much the same.  October is less than 13 weeks away!  Stay tuned!