It’s too early to tell whether a tropical disturbance developing in the Gulf of Mexico this week could impact Alabama.

One of the reasons is that it hasn’t even formed yet.

But meteorologists are confident that it will. It could become a tropical depression, or even stronger, and move north later this week.

“We continue to closely monitor trends and urge residents and visitors throughout the Gulf Coast to closely monitor the forecast over the next several days,” the National Weather Service in Mobile said during its forecast discussion Sunday morning.

Could it become a hurricane? A tropical storm? Will it even organize?

And where could it go?

According to the weather service, these are all still unanswered questions.

“Unfortunately, there is still a lot of uncertainty about the strength, timing and track of this system,” weather service meteorologists in Mobile said as they discussed the forecast Sunday morning.

Why all the attention for something that hasn’t even happened yet?

Any time a tropical disturbance enters the Gulf of Mexico, it’s worth watching. And it’s almost the climatological peak of hurricane season. And conditions in the Gulf seem to support whatever forms there to intensify, with an abundance of very warm water to fuel it and lighter wind shear.

The National Hurricane Center was closely monitoring the northwestern Caribbean and the southern Gulf on Sunday. Forecasters said there is a high probability (70 percent) of a tropical depression developing in the coming week, probably in the southern Gulf.

A system must have a defined center and winds of at least 39 mph to be considered a tropical storm and be given a name. The next name on the 2024 Atlantic storm list is Helene.

Forecasters saw signs of a disturbance beginning to develop Sunday, and the weather service said something “trackable” could form Monday night or Tuesday. And it could reach the southern Gulf on Wednesday.

The storm’s effects could reach parts of the Gulf Coast later this week.

The weather service also sees indications that it could become a large system, meaning more areas could experience wind, rain and waves.

For days, weather experts have been running model forecasts that indicate several areas along the U.S. Gulf Coast could be hit by a storm that could make landfall later this week.

But all these possible leads are still just speculation at this point.

“While we are starting to see early signs that a trackable feature is forming soon, the models still don’t know where to focus,” the weather service said.

“…when this lack of data is fed into the various models and we then look at the solutions 5-7 days later, it leads to a plethora of inaccuracies within each model run that ultimately impacts the overall output of the model run. This is why there is still so much run-to-run and model-vs-model variability in the overall strength, track, and timing of this storm.”

Once the disruption has occurred, this provides much more data that can be fed into computer models for forecasting. Based on this, predictions can be made about the route and intensity.

Meteorologists are closely monitoring the development of the disturbance, but are also keeping an eye on weather systems in the United States that could determine the course of the tropical system.

One of those is a high pressure area that is expected to be over the southeastern U.S. Forecasters will also be watching a low pressure area that will move into the Midwest. Models also predicted that a low pressure area would be cut off from that trough, but that seemed less likely on Sunday.

According to the weather service, this boundary layer would be important because it would allow the tropical disturbance to move further west.

But instead, models (as of today) point to a stronger trough of low pressure, which could indicate a more easterly track for the still-developing disturbance.

But don’t take that to the bank just yet.

“That said, these sudden changes in model guidance tell me that the upper features at play are extremely complex and erratic and that no model run should be taken at face value at this time, especially since we still have no trackable feature,” the weather service said Sunday.

“Expect the model tracks to continue to move back and forth for a while longer until the guidance has a better understanding of the system and the upper features that play a role. At that time we can start to focus on our local effects.”