The hurricane season lasts through the end of this month and there is still activity in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico to monitor.
The image above shows that tropical waves continue the move off the west African coast. These disturbances are often the first phase in the development of a tropical storm or hurricane.
The image below focuses on the north Atlantic and isobars are drawn in to show the surface pressure gradient.
Early morning satellite imagery on Tuesday shows two systems. One is Ida, on the north Gulf coast and the other is a broad low pressure area in the central Atlantic that presents only a small chance of tropical development. Notice that both of these systems are on the south edge of large areas of surface high pressure.
This morning Ida was between Mobile and Pensacola and has been downgraded to tropical depression status.


Ida is forecast to move to the east and southeast as a squally storm but the effects of the storm will affect the Mid Atlantic region. Moisture is being drawn northward ahead of a cool front. The Baltimore area will be on the north edge of this pool of moisture and rain is in the forecast through Wednesday and perhaps beyond. The chart below is a computer model forecast of likely rain areas for Wednesday morning.

The rainfall estimates for Tuesday night and Wednesday are outlined below. The chart was prepared by the National Weather Service Hydrometeorological Prediction Center.

John Collins









