Tropical update: Hurricane Gilma in Pacific, no developments in Atlantic for next few days,

All right. Good afternoon to you. I'm Fox 26 meteorologist. Remission. Shade. We've made it to the middle of the week, and I'm hoping that things remain fairly quiet in the tropics. For us, that is the case. Now, of course, we've already been hit by Hurricane Beryl so far this season. Hopefully that will be it. But as you know, generally the last few weeks of this month, all of September and even the first week or two of October are generally where we have the most action in the tropics. So I'm here to update you on what's happening out there and to let you know if we have any tropical trouble right around the corner for us. So hopefully things will continue to be quiet. I do though, want to start off with what's cranking, what's happening in the eastern Pacific. That's actually where we have the most action right now. So here's the US. You can see Mexico, Central America, South America a little bit off the map. But notice there's basically storms lined up one after the other or tropical systems or potential tropical systems that we have, the one that is actually a tropical system already. Is this one in the middle? This is Hurricane Gilma. You can clearly see that eye. You can see that spin, and it is going to continue tracking off to the west northwest. But to the west of Gilma and to the east, we have a few other systems. So we are going to continue to monitor these. But I do want to give you an update on Hurricane Gilma. The best news for us is the fact that it is moving away from the US and away from Mexico, but those maximum sustained winds are now up to around 105mph. So that would make it a category two hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. So it's a pretty potent hurricane. So here's the good news. It's not impacting any land area at this point. And like I said, it is pushing away from the US and Mexico, moving to the west northwest around seven miles per hour. So let me give you the general motion or general track of hurricane Gilma. It is forecast to most likely become a major hurricane. That will be category three or greater over the next 24 hours. So likely a cat three hurricane in the eastern Pacific likely by tomorrow. It will continue its journey to the west, and it looks like it will remain quite strong. In fact, forecast to become potentially a category four hurricane over the next few days so that is some major action out there in the Eastern Pacific. But notice, as it continues to push to the West, even by this weekend and early next week, still not forecast to impact any land areas. I guess if there's some shipping going on out there, if we've got ships moving through the area, they could be impacted, but otherwise we are not expecting Hurricane Gilma to be impacting any major land area for the moment. So that is good news. But it is certainly forecast to become a powerful, very powerful hurricane over the next 24 hours. Now let's switch gears to invest 91. We are still looking in the Eastern Pacific. Now this one gets a little bit more interesting. Notice that I have the spaghetti. Model plots forecast on here. We're going out into the future. Notice by this weekend. Invest 91 getting dangerously close to some of the Hawaiian Islands. So this could be a problem for those of you that maybe have that dream vacation plan to Hawaii. Maybe you have friends family in Hawaii, right now, it doesn't look like it's going to be a direct hit or a direct impact to the Big Island, but at this point, models have this passing just to the south of the Big Island. By Sunday evening into Monday. Notice the different computer models keeping this just to the south. So even with it, barely missing the island, the big island there could still be some impacts. We're talking about heavy rainfall, strong wind and also the threat for a little bit of storm surge. And of course, those dangerous rip currents where swimming is not going to be a good idea. So we're going to monitor this system closely. Right now it is just a tropical wave out in the eastern Pacific. But as it continues to push to the west northwest, it is forecast to strengthen. There is a decent chance that it could develop into a tropical depression or tropical storm or hurricane. And the next name on the list, at least for the Eastern Pacific, would be Hector. So we could have tropical storm or Hurricane Hector in the Pacific over the next few days. Good news with Gilma and potentially with Hector if it develops, they're both moving away from us so we don't have to worry about it. But let's switch gears and talk about the Atlantic Basin. Of course, systems that develop in the Atlantic basin could possibly impact Houston and surrounding areas and other parts of the U.S. so we're talking about the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico so far for the Atlantic basin this season, we've had five systems Tropical Storm Alberto, Hurricane Beryl, which was the earliest category five hurricane to develop in the Atlantic basin in history. So that was a really monster storm. Of course, it hit the Houston area as a category one 80 mile per hour hurricane on July 8th, and many of you still recovering from that. In fact, I was at the Houston Texans first home preseason game over the weekend, and there's still two big chunks of the roof missing and you can see that sun coming in and hitting a lot of the fans. And they were kind of fanning because it was hot where that roof was missing, and that sun was just beaming down right on them. So we are still feeling some of the effects, some of the aftermath from Hurricane Beryl, even though it has been over a month since it's hit the Houston area. We briefly had Tropical Storm Chris, and then of course, most recently we've had Hurricane Debby, which hit Florida as a category one hurricane. And then just last week into the weekend, we had Arnesto, which briefly strengthened to a category two hurricane. And of course, that one produced some impacts as well. So we've got a lot of hurricane season to get through, and there could potentially be several more systems, and we could still have some major hurricanes develop. Of course, major hurricanes will be category three, 4 or 5, so that would be around 111mph or greater all the way up to 157mph or greater. Of course, that would be a Cat five. That would be worst case scenario. We certainly hope that doesn't happen. We don't want to see that, but we're still concerned for the remainder of this hurricane season, even though things are fairly quiet now for the Atlantic basin, we're concerned because we've still got super warm water temps out there. In fact, water temps soaring well into the 80s for much of the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and for parts of the Atlantic. Water temps close to 90 degrees just offshore of the Florida coast. So we've got plenty of warm water out there to help to fuel these tropical systems. But here's the thing. Here's what's helping us out a little bit. Notice as we go into the future with our Saharan Dust Tracker. Notice those medium to dark browns indicating more of that thick, dense dust, and that thicker dust is starting to cover bigger portions of the Atlantic Ocean. So I think that is helping us out just a little bit. That Saharan dust is not that thick across the Caribbean, across the Gulf of Mexico, but it is getting a little thicker, especially across central and eastern portions of the Atlantic. So that Saharan dust brings in some drier air and it makes it more difficult for these tropical systems to blossom and to thrive out there. So for the moment, we are escaping any major development. There are a few little waves we've been monitoring, but no major tropical action expected for the Atlantic basin. For the next seven days. So that is certainly some great news for us. Like I said, many of you in the Houston area are probably still trying to recover completely from the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl last month. So we need more time to recover, and we certainly don't need any additional tropical systems messing with us. So things are quiet for now. However we've still got a little bit more of August to get through and as we get towards the end of August, and especially in September, hurricane activity usually increases. And notice for the remainder of August, the highest shot for the formation of more named storms, tropical storms and hurricanes will be across the central Atlantic. Parts of the western Atlantic, and there's even a decent chance for maybe a tropical wave, a tropical storm to develop right around the Gulf of Mexico. So we are monitoring all of these areas closely. But for now, things remain on the quiet side. But here's why. You don't need to let your guard down, because basically we're talking about the most active part of hurricane season coming up over the next month to month and a half. We've got the rest of August where that active activity starts to ramp up. All of September is usually fairly busy, the peak of hurricane season being September 10th and even into early October. Things usually remain on the busy side, so that's why you always need to be prepared. It's really times like this when things are quiet in the tropics, where you can go over your list of supplies, make sure you have everything you need because you don't want to be rushing and scrambling to the stores, to Home Depot, to other stores to get what you need. When there is a tropical storm or hurricane heading your way. So let me just go over a few of these. Make sure you have batteries a flashlight, at least one flashlight in your emergency gear kit. Make sure you have extra cash. You never know when you'll need that. Of course you need that nonperishable food to get you through those days after a hurricane hits. If that were to happen. Personal documents very important. You may want to put them in a plastic bag, or try to find some other way to protect them. Your very important personal documents, including your insurance papers. Because after a hurricane, you want to make sure you are able to get to those and you want to make sure they're still intact. It's also a great idea to have a lot of water. Bottled water is a great idea. You can also fill your bathtub with water just in case you need extra water around the house. That would be safe to use. Pet supplies. You can't forget about your pets. Just like when we had big heat waves, the pets need to be taken care of when we have hurricanes as well. You need to make sure that the pets have everything that they need. Gloves first aid kit, a good thing to have and plywood. Also a great thing to have as well. You want to make sure that your home is protected as well. So those are just some things to keep in mind. Hopefully we won't need to use any of those because of hurricanes coming our way for the rest of