Tropical Depression 28 formed Saturday evening a couple hundred miles south of far western Cuba. It should soon become Tropical Storm Zeta – the 27th named storm of the 2020 season (ties 2005 for most on record).

Intensity increases will likely be slow to take place over the next day or two, as the system slowly gets organized. Once it has a little more structure to work with, additional strengthening should take place near the Yucatan and in the southern Gulf. It’s possible Zeta becomes a hurricane. The good news is that the combination of cooler shelf waters and increasing shear should help gradually weaken the storm as it approaches the northern Gulf Coast. That being said, any storm no matter how weak/strong is not great news for an area that have already been hit hard this hurricane season.

The track of Zeta is going to be dictated by both a ridge nosing over Florida, and a fast-moving trough coming out of the southwestern U.S. The exact timing of this trough in regards to when it picks up the storm and races it NNE, will have a big impact on where exactly Zeta will ultimately make landfall. We’ll keep you posted in the coming days, and will be able to talk about specific impacts as confidence increases in the storm’s exact track.