Bryan Norcross: Possible Gulf development while we look back at the incredible hurricane season of 1926

Last updated on July 13 at 9:15 a.m.

The official word from the National Hurricane Center is that no tropical development is expected in the Atlantic, the Caribbean, or the Gulf for at least the next week. If you follow these things, however, you've probably seen chatter about the models showing a system developing in the Gulf over the weekend or early next week.

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Indeed, the European AI model, which is a product of the European Center that also runs the traditional European model, wants to spin something up near Florida's Big Bend or over the northern Florida peninsula over the weekend. The Google DeepMind AI model gives development a 10-15% chance, and other models show little or no development over the water.

There's a high chance a low-pressure system will be over North Florida or the Gulf in about a week. But it's going to be induced by a sharp dip in the jet stream, in other words by non-tropical processes. And most models indicate that whatever forms is likely to pretty quickly move north over the Southeast next week.

Also, Saharan dust is going to cover much of the Gulf for part of this week. The plume will be dissipating by the weekend, but drier air from the north will also be pulled south with the jet-stream dip. Low moisture levels should be a deterrent to development.

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In addition, if the consensus of the forecasts is correct, hostile upper-level winds will cover a good part of the northeast Gulf. The combination of negative factors accounts for the lack of a mention by the NHC.

We'll watch it, of course, but there's nothing to be concerned about. In any case, there's no evidence of a significant tropical system.

In The Pacific

The Eastern and Central Pacific are alive with activity. The National Hurricane Center is watching five potential areas of development. The two off Mexico with medium and high potential, which you see in orange and red, have a good chance of reaching hurricane strength. 

The two orange and one yellow systems south of Hawaii – orange means medium and yellow means a low chance of developing – look likely to continue west and are not a threat to land.

Moisture will stream over the desert Southwest this week, although not related to the tropical systems. Thunderstorm chances are forecast to increase the second half of the week, and dust storms are also possible from the strong thunderstorm winds.

100 Years Ago Today

Skies were partly cloudy with highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 70s in Miami on July 13, 1926. There was a light breeze out of the south switching to the west late in the day. These days, that kind of weather pattern would drive temperatures into the mid-90s. It was cooler during the summer in the years when most of today's metro Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Palm Beach was forests and farmland, and the near-shore Gulf and ocean waters weren't as warm.

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Grand new hotels opened earlier in 1926 in Coral Gables, Miami Beach, and in downtown Miami. The explosive growth in Miami was unimaginable when the city was founded just 30 years before. The building boom was faltering by that summer, but the newspapers of the day reported that business was unusually good. In those pre-air conditioning days, people who could afford it headed north to avoid the South Florida heat, but enough people stayed or were visiting that summer to noticeably increase activity.

Then as now, it was hurricane season that July, but nobody except maybe the Weather Bureau was thinking much about it. The last significant blow in South Florida was the great hurricane of September 1919, which raked the Keys and then slowly tracked west into the Gulf. Miami was on the northern edge of the giant storm. It caused problems in the city, but that was before the big building and population boom got underway in the early 1920s.

The closest thing to a direct hit during the boom years came in late October of 1924. A developing hurricane stalled over the northwest Caribbean, pumping tropical moisture across South Florida starting on Thursday, October 16. At the same time, a cold front was stuck over Central Florida enhancing the rainfall. Hurricane warnings were issued for most of the Florida peninsula.

The rain fell for 5 days, knocking out power and communications lines, washing out train tracks, and causing widespread flooding. The Dixie Highway north of Miami was under 2 to 3 feet of water halfway up the peninsula.

Finally, early on Tuesday, October 21, the center of what was left of the giant hurricane tracked across South Florida from the west. The modern estimate is that top winds were 70 mph when the storm's center finally crossed the east coast heading into the Atlantic that morning. By afternoon, the back side of the storm pulled in cool, dry air from the north.

In 2005, Hurricane Wilma did the same trick on a similar track, but Wilma's winds were significantly stronger over the metro area.

In the end, it was the rain that was the memorable feature of the 1924 storm in South Florida. Rainfall that October was about four times the normal amount – over 25 inches – from the hurricane and a tropical disturbance early in the month.

The storm is known as the 1924 Cuba Hurricane. It's the first Category 5 in the record book and the only Category 5 to hit the island other than Hurricane Irma in 2017. The storm produced widespread devastation across western Cuba and the nearby islands in the northwest Caribbean. The modern estimate is that the top sustained winds were 165 mph at landfall near the western tip of Cuba.

That 1924 storm was dramatic and impactful, but the peak of the boom was in 1925 when Miami was growing so fast that people were sleeping in their cars. They didn't want to miss out on the easy money to be made speculating on real estate and everything else. Many people were new to town, and for those where were there the year before, any lessons from 1924 were easily forgotten.

That was the setup for the incredible events to come in 1926… beginning later that July with the first hurricane, which was the first of four tropical systems to impact South Florida that epic hurricane season.