Tropical Wave To Develop As It Moves West

Tropical Storm Gabrielle will sweep across the Atlantic over the next several days, but didn't we already say that this month?

Yes, actually, we did.

Just after Labor Day we were watching a tropical wave, known as Invest 91L, with a 90% chance of development when it was between Africa and the Lesser Antilles.

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All signals were that the system would be a longer-duration storm that would run through the Leeward Islands, possibly dropping rainfall and bringing gusty winds from Guadeloupe to Puerto Rico. Some computer models and other competitors even thought the system would become a hurricane. We even called it "future Gabrielle" in a few spots.

The reality: In one weekend, models quickly soured on the system and Gabrielle never formed. We don't have a great understanding of why this happened, but modest sinking, dry air could have put the kibosh on that system.

Today, September 17, Gabrielle finally formed a week after the last week's system above made that first attempt.

You can read about the latest on this system here.

Jonathan Belles has been a digital meteorologist for weather.com for 9 years and also assists in the production of videos for The Weather Channel en español. His favorite weather is tropical weather, but also enjoys covering high-impact weather and news stories and winter storms. He's a two-time graduate of Florida State University and a proud graduate of St. Petersburg College.