EVENING TROPICS: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2019

TROPICAL STORM OLGA HAS FORMED IN THE NORTHWESTERN GULF. IT WILL LIKELY LAST ONLY A FEW HOURS, HOWEVER, BEFORE IT MERGES WITH A COLD FRONT THAT’S ALMOST ON TOP OF IT.

Just ahead of the front, the upper-level winds are favorable enough for Olga’s winds to reach 40 mph, but the strong cold front that moved off the Texas coast this morning, along with strong and hostile upper-level winds, will erase the tropical aspects of the storm as the front and Olga’s circulation merge.

The combo system will be a wintertime-type low-pressure system with winds still over 40 mph, which will bring gusty winds and heavy rain to Louisiana and Mississippi, and then points farther north. The system’s changeover later today to non-tropical will not change the nasty weather along the northwestern Gulf coast.

The Texas cold front will move toward Florida, but not make it. A high-pressure system over Florida and the Bahamas is continuing to block fronts from pushing through Florida. The consensus of the computer forecast models is this the pattern won’t change in any significant way through next week.

On the other side the Atlantic, tiny Tropical Storm Pablo has formed near the Azores Islands off Portugal. It’s forecast to move through the island chain as a tropical storm tomorrow and then die in the North Atlantic.