ORLANDO, Fla. – Tropical Storm Gabrielle formed Wednesday morning in the Atlantic, becoming our next named storm of the hurricane season.
The National Hurricane Center has green lit the upgrade from Tropical Depression 7 to Tropical Storm Gabrielle.
Gabrielle is spinning in the central tropical Atlantic, and now has sustained winds nearest to the low pressure center to support the transition from a depression to a full-fledged storm.
The 11 a.m. advisory gives it winds around 45 mph moving now north-northwest with the upper low steering it along.
[VIDEO BELOW: How to track tropics on free News 6 Weather App]
However, I want to echo immediately, Gabrielle isn’t the prettiest to look at on satellite imagery.
The last few days were good to our organizing tropical wave. Moisture was readily available to develop some generous thunderstorms near the strongest focus of our energy with the wave and as a result, we quickly started to pick up some spin.
But one of the many issues plaguing the Atlantic throughout the duration of our hurricane season has been a combo of dry air being dumped into the tropics, and the leftover upper level low’s that are a side effect of this same mechanism.
If you’d like to read a little more about this phenomena, click HERE.
As the sun came up Wednesday, one of those upper level lows did find a way to grab hold of our developing tropical entity and start yanking on it from the north.
When you take a look at a visible satellite image of Tropical Storm Gabrielle, it’s very difficult to truly pinpoint where our low center really is. The cloud signature with the system has been elongated, like a piece of Laffy Taffy you’d find at your local candy store.
In the short term, this will surely hinder its ability to gain any additional strength, but National Hurricane Center is still confident down the ways it will obtain hurricane intensity.
[VIDEO BELOW: Candace Campos’ forecast for Central Florida]
While the forecast projection does have a Category 1 hurricane toward the end of the seven-day window, Gabrielle has some work to do in order to combat the hostility faced around every mile it treks across the Atlantic.
This upper level low for starters will add some shear and dry air to the north and western halves of the circulation. Then we’re anticipating the two could ride in tandem with one another.
Once we’re done playing ping pong with upper level lows in the central Atlantic, the system will start to approach an area of strong westerly winds high up in the atmosphere. If Gabrielle can stay on the nose of this corridor of strong winds, it could help to strengthen the outflow that supports deepening the low pressure itself.
That’s when computer models show a solution where it becomes a hurricane, while also ricocheting into open water away from any major landmass.
So, despite a slow and gradual trend toward finally becoming our next named storm, Gabrielle is here. Thankfully it will be steered far away from us in Central Florida, and may not impact anyone’s weather at all through the course of its life cycle.
We fully intend on bringing you all the need-to-know information about this system over the coming days, so stick with your News 6 weather team.