Throughout this evening's newscasts, we've been bringing you live coverage on the Gulf oil slick from the western Panhandle, where tar balls began washing ashore on the beaches of Pensacola today. The wind direction will remain southwesterly over the weekend, allowing oil to continue to advance toward the beaches of Alabama and Florida, but there are some signs that a shift in the wind could occur, however briefly, early next week. A weak cold front will be falling apart as it moves toward the northern Gulf coast on Monday; some of our models weaken this front enough to the point where there is no appreciable change in the wind. Others, though, bring it far enough south so that the wind shifts toward a northerly setting late Monday into Tuesday, which might help guide the oil slick back out into the Gulf.
This time of year, odds favor the models that do not bring the front to the Gulf coast.. however, I'll be watching the new forecast models coming in later on this evening to see if they trend more in that direction. Also just in, NOAA has reduced the area of Gulf waters closed for fishing -- likely due to the forecast models picking up on the eddy breaking off of the Gulf loop current (this will inhibit any southerly or southeasterly movement of the oil slick). More on that coming up at 6PM.
Brian
